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Title: The Hundred Best English Poems

Author: Various

Editor: Adam L. Gowans

Release Date: February 15, 2006 [eBook #17768]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUNDRED BEST ENGLISH POEMS***

E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Diane Monico, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)

THE HUNDRED BEST ENGLISH POEMS

Selected by

ADAM L. GOWANS, M.A.

[Illustration: Alfred, Lord Tennyson.]

[Illustration]

New York Thomas Y. Crowell & Company Publishers Copyright, 1904, By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

THIS LITTLE COLLECTION IS DEDICATED TO JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY, ESQ. BY THE SELECTOR AS A SLIGHT MARK OF A DEEP ADMIRATION

PREFATORY NOTE.

Let me frankly admit, to begin with, that the attractiveness and probable selling qualities of the title of this little book, "The Hundred Best English Poems," proved, when it had been once thought of, too powerful arguments for it to be abandoned. I am fully conscious of the presumption such a title implies in an unknown selector, but at the same time I submit that only a plebiscite of duly qualified lovers of poetry could make a selection that could claim to deserve this title beyond all question, and such a plebiscite is of course impossible. I can claim no more than that my attempt to realize this title is an honest one, and I can assert, without fear of contradiction, that every one of the poems I have included is a "gem of purest ray serene"; that none can be too often read or too often repeated to one's self; that every one of them should be known by heart by every lover of good literature, so that each may become, as it were, a part of his inner being.

I have not inserted any poems by living authors.

I have taken the greatest care with the texts of the poems. The editions followed have been mentioned in every case. I have scrupulously retained the punctuation of these original editions, and only modernized the spelling of the old copies; while I have not ventured to omit any part of any poem. I have not supplied titles of my own, but have adopted those I found already employed in the editions used as models, or, in some of the cases in which I found none, have merely added a descriptive one, such as "Song from 'Don Juan.'"

In conclusion, my very warmest thanks are due to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for permission to include Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar"; to Mr. D. Nutt for permission to insert W. E. Henley's "To R. T. H. B." and "Margarit� Sorori"; to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for a like privilege in regard to Browning's "Epilogue," and to Mr. Lloyd Osbourne and Messrs. Chatto & Windus for permission to reproduce Stevenson's "Requiem." Without these poems the volume would have had a much smaller claim to its title than it does possess, slight as that may be. My thanks are also due to the following gentlemen who have kindly allowed me to reproduce copyright texts of non-copyright poems from editions published by them: Messrs. Bickers & Son (Ben Jonson), Messrs. Chapman & Hall, Ltd. (Landor), Messrs. Chatto & Windus (Herrick), Mr. Buxton Forman (Keats and Shelley), Mr. Henry Frowde (Wordsworth), Mr. Alex. Gardner and the Rev. George Henderson, B.D. (Lady Nairne), Messrs. T. C. & E. C. Jack (Burns), Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd. (Clough and Tennyson), Mr. John Murray (Byron), Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. (Browning), Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd. (Coleridge and Hood).

A. L. G.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

ANONYMOUS. 1. Madrigal 1

ARNOLD (1822-1888). 2. The Forsaken Merman 2

BARBAULD (1743-1825). 3. Life 10

BROWNING (1812-1889). 4. Song from "Pippa Passes" 12 5. Song from "Pippa Passes" 12 6. The Lost Mistress 13 7. Home-Thoughts, from the Sea 14 8. Epilogue 15

BURNS (1759-1796). 9. The Silver Tassie 17 10. Of a' the Airts 18 11. John Anderson my Jo 19 12. Ae Fond Kiss 20 13. Ye Flowery Banks 21 14. A Red, Red Rose 22 15. Mary Morison 24

BYRON (1788-1824). 16. She Walks in Beauty 26 17. Oh! Snatched Away in Beauty's Bloom 27 18. Song from "The Corsair" 28 19. Song from "Don Juan" 29

CAMPBELL (1777-1844). 20. Hohenlinden 35

CLOUGH (1819-1861). 21. Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth 37

COLERIDGE (1772-1834). 22. Youth and Age 38

COLLINS (1721-1759). 23. Written in the Year 1746 41

COWPER (1731-1800). 24. To a Young Lady 42

CUNNINGHAM (1784-1842). 25. A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea 43

DAVENANT (1606-1668). 26. Song 45

DRYDEN (1631-1700). 27. A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687 46

GOLDSMITH (1728-1774). 28. Song 50

GRAY (1716-1771). 29. Elegy written in a Country Church-yard 51

HENLEY (1849-1903). 30. To R. T. H. B. 59 31. I. M. Margarit� Sorori 60

HERBERT (1593-1632). 32. Virtue 62

HERRICK (1591-1674). 33. To the Virgins, to make much of Time 63 34. To Anthea, who may command him anything 64

HOOD (1798-1845). 35. The Death Bed 66 36. The Bridge of Sighs 67 37. I Remember, I Remember 72

JONSON (1573-1637). 38. To Celia 74

KEATS (1795-1821). 39. On first looking into Chapman's Homer 75 40. Ode to a Nightingale 76 41. Ode on a Grecian Urn 80 42. To Autumn 83 43. Ode on Melancholy 85 44. La Belle Dame sans Merci 87 45. Sonnet 90

LAMB (1775-1834). 46. The Old Familiar Faces 92

LANDOR (1775-1864). 47. The Maid's Lament 94

LOVELACE (1618-1658). 48. To Lucasta. Going to the Wars 96

MILTON (1608-1674). 49. On the Morning of Christ's Nativity 97 50. L'Allegro 112 51. Il Penseroso 119 52. Lycidas 127 53. On his Blindness 137

NAIRINE (1766-1845). 54. The Land o' the Leal 138

POPE (1688-1744). 55. Ode on Solitude 140

RALEIGH (1552-1618). 56. The Night before his Death 142

ROGERS (1763-1855). 57. A Wish 143

SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616). 58. Sonnets. XVII. Who will believe my verse? 144 59. XVIII. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 145 60. XXX. When to the sessions 145 61. XXXIII. Full many a glorious morning 146 62. LX. Like as the waves 147 63. LXVI. Tired with all these 148 64. LXXI. No longer mourn 149 65. LXXIII. That time of year 149 66. LXXIV. But be contented 150 67. CVI. When in the chronicle 151 68. CXVI. Let me not to the marriage 152 69. Song from "The Tempest" 152 70. Song from "Measure for Measure" 153 71. Song from "Much Ado about Nothing" 153 72. Song from "Cymbeline" 154

SHELLEY (1792-1822). 73. Song from "Prometheus Unbound" 156 74. Ode to the West Wind 157 75. The Cloud 161 76. To a Skylark 165 77. Chorus from "Hellas" 171 78. Stanzas. Written in Dejection, near Naples 173 79. The Indian Serenade 176 80. To ---- 177 81. To Night 178

SHIRLEY (1596-1666). 82. Song from "Ajax and Ulysses" 181

SOUTHEY (1774-1843). 83. Stanzas 183

STEVENSON (1850-1894). 84. Requiem 185

TENNYSON (1809-1892). 85. Song from "The Miller's Daughter" 186 86. St. Agnes' Eve 187 87. Break, break, break 188 88. Song from "The Princess" 189 89. Song from "The Princess" 191 90. Crossing the Bar 192

WALLER (1606-1687). 91. On a Girdle 193 92. Song 194

WORDSWORTH (1770-1850). 93. She dwelt among the untrodden ways 195 94. She was a Phantom of delight 195 95. Sonnets. Part I.--XXXIII. The world is too much with us 197 96. Part II.--XXXVI. Earth has not anything 198 97. To a Highland Girl, at Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond 198 98. The Solitary Reaper 202 99. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood 204

WOTTON (1568-1639). 100. On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia 215

THE HUNDRED BEST ENGLISH POEMS.

ANONYMOUS.

1. Madrigal.

Love not me for comely grace, For my pleasing eye or face; Nor for any outward part, No, nor for my constant heart: For those may fail or turn to ill, So thou and I shall sever: Keep therefore a true woman's eye, And love me still, but know not why; So hast thou the same reason still To doat upon me ever.

1609 Edition.

* * * * *

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

2. The Forsaken Merman.

Come, dear children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shorewards blow; Now the salt tides seawards flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us away. This way, this way.

Call her once before you go. Call once yet. In a voice that she will know: "Margaret! Margaret!" Children's voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother's ear: Children's voices, wild with pain. Surely she will come again. Call her once and come away. This way, this way. "Mother dear, we cannot stay." The wild white horses foam and fret. Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down. Call no more. One last look at the white-wall'd town, And the little grey church on the windy shore. Then come down. She will not come though you call all day. Come away, come away.

Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay? In the caverns where we lay, Through the surf and through the swell, The far-off sound of a silver bell? Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, Where the winds are all asleep; Where the spent lights quiver and gleam; Where the salt weed sways in the stream; Where the sea-beasts rang'd all round Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground; Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, Dry their mail and bask in the brine; Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world for ever and aye? When did music come this way? Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of the far-off bell. She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea. She said; "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little grey church on the shore to-day. 'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me! And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee." I said; "Go up, dear heart, through the waves. Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves." She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay. Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone? "The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan. Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say. Come," I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay. We went up the beach, by the sandy down Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town. Through the narrow pav'd streets, where all was still, To the little grey church on the windy hill. From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. We climb'd on the graves, on the stones, worn with rains, And we gaz'd up the aisle through the small leaded panes. She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: "Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here. Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone. The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." But, ah, she gave me never a look, For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book. "Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door." Come away, children, call no more. Come away, come down, call no more.

Down, down, down. Down to the depths of the sea. She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark, what she sings: "O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy. For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well. For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun." And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the shuttle falls from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand; And over the sand at the sea; And her eyes are set in a stare; And anon there breaks a sigh, And anon there drops a tear, From a sorrow-clouded eye, And a heart sorrow-laden, A long, long sigh. For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away children. Come children, come down. The hoarse wind blows colder; Lights shine in the town. She will start from her slumber When gusts shake the door; She will hear the winds howling, Will hear the waves roar. We shall see, while above us The waves roar and whirl, A ceiling of amber, A pavement of pearl. Singing, "Here came a mortal, But faithless was she. And alone dwell for ever The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight, When soft the winds blow; When clear falls the moonlight; When spring-tides are low: When sweet airs come seaward From heaths starr'd with broom; And high rocks throw mildly On the blanch'd sands a gloom: Up the still, glistening beaches, Up the creeks we will hie; Over banks of bright seaweed The ebb-tide leaves dry. We will gaze, from the sand-hills, At the white, sleeping town; At the church on the hill-side-- And then come back down. Singing, "There dwells a lov'd one, But cruel is she. She left lonely for ever The kings of the sea."

1857 Edition.

ANNA L�TITIA BARBAULD.

3. Life.

Animula, vagula, blandula.

Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part; And when, or how, or where we met, I own to me's a secret yet. But this I know, when thou art fled, Where'er they lay these limbs, this head, No clod so valueless shall be, As all that then remains of me.

O whither, whither dost thou fly, Where bend unseen thy trackless course, And in this strange divorce, Ah tell where I must seek this compound I? To the vast ocean of empyreal flame, From whence thy essence came, Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed From matter's base encumbering weed? Or dost thou, hid from sight, Wait, like some spell-bound knight, Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour, To break thy trance and reassume thy power? Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be? O say what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee?

Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good morning.

1825 Edition.

ROBERT BROWNING.

4. Song from "Pippa Passes."

The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world!

5. Song from "Pippa Passes."

You'll love me yet!--and I can tarry Your love's protracted growing: June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, From seeds of April's sowing.

I plant a heartful now: some seed At least is sure to strike, And yield--what you'll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like.

You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet: Your look?--that pays a thousand pains. What's death? You'll love me yet!

6. The Lost Mistress.

I.

All's over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter About your cottage eaves!

II.

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, to-day; One day more bursts them open fully --You know the red turns grey.

III.

IV.

For each glance of the eye so bright and black, Though I keep with heart's endeavour,-- Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my soul for ever!--

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest? May I take your hand in mine? Mere friends are we,--well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign:

V.

Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer!

7. Home-Thoughts, from the Sea.

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and grey; "Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"--say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

8. Epilogue.

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned-- Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, --Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel --Being--who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,--fight on, fare ever There as here!"

1896 Edition.

ROBERT BURNS.

9. The Silver Tassie.

Go, fetch to me a pint o' wine, And fill it in a silver tassie, That I may drink before I go A service to my bonie lassie! The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith, Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry, The ship rides by the Berwick-Law, And I maun leave my bonie Mary.

The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The glittering spears are rank�d ready, The shouts o' war are heard afar, The battle closes deep and bloody. It's not the roar o' sea or shore Wad mak me langer wish to tarry, Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar: It's leaving thee, my bonie Mary!

10. Of a' the Airts.

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw I dearly like the west, For there the bonie lassie lives, The lassie I lo'e best. There wild woods grow, and rivers row, And monie a hill between, But day and night my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers-- I see her sweet and fair. I hear her in the tunefu' birds-- I hear her charm the air. There's not a bonie flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green, There's not a bonie bird that sings, But minds me o' my Jean.

11. John Anderson my Jo.

John Anderson my jo, John, When we were first acquent, Your locks were like the raven, Your bonie brow was brent; But now your brow is beld, John, Your locks are like the snaw, But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson my jo!

John Anderson my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither, And monie a cantie day, John, We've had wi' ane anither; Now we maun totter down, John, And hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson my jo!

12. Ae Fond Kiss.

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! Ae farewell, and then forever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me, Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy: Naething could resist my Nancy! But to see her was to love her, Love but her, and love for ever. Had we never lov'd sae kindly, Had we never lov'd sae blindly, Never met--or never parted-- We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest! Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest! Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace, Enjoyment, Love, and Pleasure! Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! Ae farewell, alas, for ever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

13. Ye Flowery Banks.

Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon, How can ye blume sae fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care?

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird, That sings upon the bough: Thou minds me o' the happy days When my fause Luve was true!

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonie bird, That sings beside thy mate: For sae I sat, and sae I sang, And wist na o' my fate!

Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon To see the woodbine twine, And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose Frae aff its thorny tree, And my fause luver staw my rose, But left the thorn wi' me.

14. A Red, Red Rose.

O, my luve is like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June. O, my luve is like the melodie, That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass, So deep in luve am I, And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun! And I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare the weel, my only luve, And fare the weel a while! And I will come again, my luve, Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

15. Mary Morison.

O Mary, at thy window be! It is the wish'd, the trysted hour. Those smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser's treasure poor. How blythely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun, Could I the rich reward secure-- The lovely Mary Morison!

Yestreen, when to the trembling string The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard or saw: Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a' the town, I sigh'd and said amang them a':-- "Ye are na Mary Morison!"

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace Wha for thy sake wad gladly die? Or canst thou break that heart of his Whase only faut is loving thee? If love for love thou wilt na gie, At least be pity to me shown: A thought ungentle canna be The thought o' Mary Morison.

Henderson and Henley's Text.

LORD BYRON.

16. She Walks in Beauty.

She walks in Beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

17. Oh! Snatched Away in Beauty's Bloom.

Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom, On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, And feed deep thought with many a dream, And lingering pause and lightly tread; Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed the dead!

Away! we know that tears are vain, That Death nor heeds nor hears distress: Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou--who tell'st me to forget, Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

18. Song from "The Corsair."

Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells, Lonely and lost to light for evermore, Save when to thine my heart responsive swells, Then trembles into silence as before.

There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp Burns the slow flame, eternal--but unseen; Which not the darkness of Despair can damp, Though vain its ray as it had never been.

Remember me--Oh! pass not thou my grave Without one thought whose relics there recline: The only pang my bosom dare not brave Must be to find forgetfulness in thine.

My fondest--faintest--latest accents hear-- Grief for the dead not Virtue can reprove; Then give me all I ever asked--a tear, The first--last--sole reward of so much love!

19. Song from "Don Juan."

The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of War and Peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their Sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse, The Hero's harp, the Lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse: Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your Sires' "Islands of the Blest."

The mountains look on Marathon-- And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave.

A King sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations;--all were his! He counted them at break of day-- And, when the Sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou, My Country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now-- The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy Lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?

VI.

'Tis something, in the dearth of Fame, Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush--for Greece a tear.

VII.

Must we but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush?--Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopyl�!

VIII.

What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no;--the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, "Let one living head, But one arise,--we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb.

IX.

In vain--in vain: strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble call-- How answers each bold Bacchanal!

X.

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave-- Think ye he meant them for a slave?

XI.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! We will not think of themes like these! It made Anacreon's song divine: He served--but served Polycrates-- A Tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen.

XII.

The Tyrant of the Chersonese Was Freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind.

XIII.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore, Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore; And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, The Heracleidan blood might own.

XIV.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks-- They have a king who buys and sells; In native swords, and native ranks, The only hope of courage dwells; But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, Would break your shield, however broad.

XV.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Our virgins dance beneath the shade-- I see their glorious black eyes shine; But gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

XVI.

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-- Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

Coleridge's Text.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

20. Hohenlinden.

On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow; And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight, When the drum beat, at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery.

By torch and trumpet fast array'd, Each horseman drew his battle blade, And furious every charger neigh'd, To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riv'n, Then rush'd the steed to battle driv'n, And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flash'd the red artillery.

But redder yet that light shall glow, On Linden's hills of stained snow, And bloodier yet the torrent flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun, Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave! Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave! And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few, shall part where many meet! The snow shall be their winding sheet, And every turf beneath their feet, Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

1809 Edition.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

21. Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth.

Say not, the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.

1869 Edition.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

22. Youth and Age.

Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-- Both were mine! Life went a maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young!

When I was young?--Ah, woful when! Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong, O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, How lightly then it flashed along:-- Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I liv'd in't together. Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree; O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old.

Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit-- It cannot be, that Thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:-- And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe, that Thou art gone? I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size: But springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve! Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve, When we are old:

That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-leave, Like some poor nigh-related guest, That may not rudely be dismist. Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile.

WILLIAM COLLINS.

23. Written in the Year 1746.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country's wishes bless'd! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall a while repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there.

1822 Edition.

WILLIAM COWPER.

24. To a Young Lady.

Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade, Apt emblem of a virtuous maid-- Silent and chaste she steals along, Far from the world's gay busy throng, With gentle, yet prevailing, force, Intent upon her destin'd course; Graceful and useful all she does, Blessing and blest where'er she goes, Pure-bosom'd as that wat'ry glass, And heav'n reflected in her face.

1813 Edition.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

25. A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea.

A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast; And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While, like the eagle free, Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old England on the lee.

O for a soft and gentle wind! I heard a fair one cry; But give to me the snoring breeze, And white waves heaving high; And white waves heaving high, my boys, The good ship tight and free-- The world of waters is our home, And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon horned moon, And lightning in yon cloud; And hark the music, mariners! The wind is piping loud; The wind is piping loud, my boys, The lightning flashing free-- While the hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea.

1847 Edition.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.

26. Song.

The lark now leaves his wat'ry nest, And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings; He takes this window for the east; And to implore your light, he sings: "Awake, awake! the morn will never rise, Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

"The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, The ploughman from the sun his season takes; But still the lover wonders what they are, Who look for day before his mistress wakes. Awake, awake! break thro' your veils of lawn! Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn."

1810 Edition.

JOHN DRYDEN.

27. A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687.

From harmony, from heav'nly harmony This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And cou'd not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead. Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell! When Jubal struck the corded shell, His list'ning brethren stood around, And, wond'ring, on their faces fell To worship that celestial sound. Less than a God they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that shell, That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell!

The trumpet's loud clangour Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Of the thund'ring drum Cries, Hark! the foes come; Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.

The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs, and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, For the fair, disdainful dame.

But oh! what art can teach, What human voice can reach, The sacred organ's praise? Notes inspiring holy love, Notes that wing their heavenly ways To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus cou'd lead the savage race; And trees uprooted left their place, Sequacious of the lyre: But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder higher: When to her organ vocal breath was giv'n, An angel heard, and straight appear'd, Mistaking Earth for Heav'n.

GRAND CHORUS.

As from the pow'r of sacred lays The spheres began to move, And sung the great Creator's praise To all the Bless'd above; So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky.

1743 Edition.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

28. Song.

The wretch condemn'd with life to part, Still, still on hope relies; And ev'ry pang that rends the heart, Bids expectation rise.

Hope, like the glimm'ring taper's light, Adorns and cheers the way; And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.

1816 Edition.

THOMAS GRAY.

29. Elegy written in a Country Church-yard.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bow'r, Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke.

Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre:

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; Forbade to wade thro' slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply: And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate,--

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn:

'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

'The next, with dirges due in sad array Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne:-- Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth, And melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear, He gain'd from heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.

Mitford's Text.

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.

30. To R. T. H. B.

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

31. I. M. Margarit� Sorori (1886)

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies; And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, grey city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace.

The smoke ascends In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires Shine, and are changed. In the valley Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, Closing his benediction, Sinks, and the darkening air Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night-- Night with her train of stars And her great gift of sleep. So be my passing! My task accomplished and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me be gathered to the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene, Death.

1898 Edition.

GEORGE HERBERT.

32. Virtue.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky: The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye: Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives.

1633 Edition.

ROBERT HERRICK.

33. To the Virgins, to make much of Time.

1. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to-day, To-morrow will be dying.

2. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he's a-getting; The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting.

3. That age is best, which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times, still succeed the former.

4. Then be not coy, but use your time; And while ye may, go marry: For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry.

34. To Anthea, who may command him anything.

1. Bid me to live, and I will live Thy Protestant to be: Or bid me love, and I will give A loving heart to thee.

2. A heart as soft, a heart as kind, A heart as sound and free, As in the whole world thou canst find, That heart I'll give to thee.

3. Bid that heart stay, and it will stay, To honour thy decree: Or bid it languish quite away, And't shall do so for thee.

4. Bid me to weep, and I will weep, While I have eyes to see: And having none, yet I will keep A heart to weep for thee.

5. Bid me despair, and I'll despair, Under that cypress tree: Or bid me die, and I will dare E'en death, to die for thee.

6. Thou art my life, my love, my heart, The very eyes of me: And hast command of every part, To live and die for thee.

Grosart's Text.

THOMAS HOOD

35. The Death Bed.

We watch'd her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak, So slowly moved about, As we had lent her half our powers To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied-- We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad, And chill with early showers, Her quiet eyelids closed--she had Another morn than ours.

36. The Bridge of Sighs.

"Drown'd! drown'd!"--Hamlet.

One more Unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments Clinging like cerements; Whilst the wave constantly Drips from her clothing; Take her up instantly, Loving, not loathing.--

Touch her not scornfully; Think of her mournfully, Gently and humanly; Not of the stains of her, All that remains of her Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny Into her mutiny Rash and undutiful: Past all dishonour, Death has left on her Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers, One of Eve's family-- Wipe those poor lips of hers Oozing so clammily.

Loop up her tresses Escaped from the comb, Her fair auburn tresses; Whilst wonderment guesses Where was her home?

Who was her father? Who was her mother? Had she a sister? Had she a brother? Or was there a dearer one Still, and a nearer one Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun! Oh! it was pitiful! Near a whole city full, Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly, Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed: Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; Even God's providence Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver So far in the river, With many a light From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood, with amazement, Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver; But not the dark arch, Or the black flowing river: Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Swift to be hurl'd-- Any where, any where Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly, No matter how coldly The rough river ran,-- Over the brink of it, Picture it--think of it, Dissolute Man! Lave in it, drink of it, Then, if you can!

Ere her limbs frigidly Stiffen too rigidly, Decently,--kindly,-- Smooth, and compose them; And her eyes, close them, Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring Thro' muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fix'd on futurity.

Perishing gloomily, Spurr'd by contumely, Cold inhumanity, Burning insanity, Into her rest.-- Cross her hands humbly, As if praying dumbly, Over her breast!

Owning her weakness, Her evil behaviour, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour!

37. I Remember, I Remember.

I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day, But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember, The roses, red and white, The violets, and the lily cups, Those flowers made of light! The lilacs where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburnum on his birth-day,-- The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember Where I was used to swing, And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing; My spirit flew in feathers then, That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember The fir trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky: It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from Heav'n Than when I was a boy.

1862-3 Edition.

BEN JONSON

38. To Celia.

Drink to me, only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst, that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine: But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee, As giving it a hope, that there It could not wither'd be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me: Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee.

Cunningham's Text.

JOHN KEATS

39. On first looking into Chapman's Homer.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer rul'd as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

40. Ode to a Nightingale.

1.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2.

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Proven�al song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

3.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-ey'd despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

4.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

6.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-- To thy high requiem become a sod.

7.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep?

41. Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

42. To Autumn.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,-- And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

43. Ode on Melancholy.

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

44. La Belle Dame sans Merci.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, Alone and palely loitering; The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful, a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean, and sing A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew; And sure in language strange she said, I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot, And there she gaz'd and sighed deep, And there I shut her wild sad eyes-- So kiss'd to sleep.

9.

And there we slumber'd on the moss, And there I dream'd, ah woe betide, The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill-side.

10.

I saw pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci Hath thee in thrall!"

11.

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke, and found me here On the cold hill-side.

12.

And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.

45. Sonnet.

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Buxton Forman's Text.

CHARLES LAMB.

46. The Old Familiar Faces.

Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? I had a mother, but she died, and left me, Died prematurely in a day of horrors-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I lov'd a love once, fairest among women; Clos'd are her doors on me, I must not see her-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man. Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly; Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I pac'd round the haunts of my childhood. Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother! Why were not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces.

For some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

1798 Edition.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

47. The Maid's Lament.

I loved him not; and yet now he is gone I feel I am alone. I check'd him while he spoke; yet could he speak, Alas! I would not check. For reasons not to love him once I sought, And wearied all my thought To vex myself and him: I now would give My love, could he but live Who lately lived for me, and when he found 'Twas vain, in holy ground He hid his face amid the shades of death. I waste for him my breath Who wasted his for me: but mine returns, And this lorn bosom burns With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep, And waking me to weep Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years Wept he as bitter tears. Merciful God! such was his latest prayer, These may she never share! Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold, Than daisies in the mould, Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, His name and life's brief date. Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be, And oh! pray too for me!

1868 Edition.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

48. To Lucasta. Going to the Wars.

Tell me not, (sweet,) I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly.

True: a new Mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such, As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Lov'd I not Honour more.

Carew Hazlitt's Text.

JOHN MILTON.

49. On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.

This is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King, Of wedded Maid and Virgin-Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For so the holy sages once did sing, That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside; and, here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant God? Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, To welcome him to this his new abode, Now, while the heaven, by the Sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See how from far upon the eastern road The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet! Oh! run, prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel quire, From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

THE HYMN.

It was the winter wild, While the heaven-born child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him Had doffed her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize. It was no season then for her To wanton with the Sun her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden-white to throw, Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he, her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; She, crowned with olive-green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere, His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And, waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes an universal peace through sea and land.

No war or battle's sound Was heard the world around; The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood, Unstained with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night, Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began. The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kissed, Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

The stars, with deep amaze, Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence, And will not take their flight, For all the morning-light, Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And, though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The sun himself withheld his wonted speed; And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame The new-enlightened world no more should need; He saw a greater sun appear Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they than That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below. Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook; Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took. The air, such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

Nature, that heard such sound, Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat, the airy region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling. She knew such harmony alone Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.

At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shame-faced Night arrayed. The helmed Cherubim, And sworded Seraphim, Are seen, in glittering ranks with wings displayed, Harping, in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes to Heaven's new-born Heir.

Such music--as 'tis said-- Before was never made, But when of old the Sons of Morning sung; While the Creator great His constellations set, And the well-balanced World on hinges hung, And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears, --If ye have power to touch our senses so-- And let your silver-chime Move in melodious time, And let the base of heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the Age of Gold; And speckled Vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; And Hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

Yea Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow, and like glories wearing; Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; And Heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.

But wisest Fate says No, This must not yet be so, The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy, That, on the bitter cross, Must redeem our loss; So both himself and us to glorify: Yet first, to those ychained in sleep, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.

XVII.

With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake, The aged earth aghast, With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When, at the world's last session, The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII.

And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day The Old Dragon under ground, In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway, And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX.

The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

XX.

The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale Edged with poplar pale, The parting Genius is with sighing sent; With flower-inwoven tresses torn The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

XXI.

In consecrated earth, And on the holy hearth, The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; In urns and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII.

Peor and Ba�lim Forsake their temples dim, With that twice battered god of Palestine; And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn; In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

XXIII.

And sullen Moloch, fled, Hath left in shadows dread His burning idol all of blackest hue; In vain with cymbals' ring They call the grisly king, In dismal dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.

XXIV.

Nor is Osiris seen In Memphian grove or green, Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud; Nor can he be at rest Within his sacred chest, Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.

XXV.

He feels, from Juda's land, The dreaded Infant's hand, The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine. Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling-bands control the damned crew.

XXVI.

So when the sun in bed, Curtained with cloudy red, Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail, Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave, And the yellow-skirted fayes Fly after the Night steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

XXVII.

But see! the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest, Time is our tedious song should here have ending; Heaven's youngest-teemed star Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid-lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.

50. L'Allegro.

Hence, loathed Melancholy! Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy. Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou Goddess fair and free, In Heaven yclept Euphrosyn�, And by men, heart-easing Mirth; Whom lovely Venus, at a birth With two sister Graces more, To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore; Or whether, as some sager sing, The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-maying, There, on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles-- Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter, holding both his sides: Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; And, if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew To live with her and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine; While the cock, with lively din, Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And, to the stack or the barn-door, Stoutly struts his dames before: Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering Morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill. Sometime walking, not unseen, By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great Sun begins his state, Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman, near at hand, Whistles o'er the furrowed land, And the milkmaid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale, Under the hawthorn in the dale. Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landscape round it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray, Mountains on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest, Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide, Towers and battlements it sees, Bosomed high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some Beauty lies, The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes. Hard by a cottage-chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then in haste her bower she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tanned haycock in the mead. Sometimes, with secure delight, The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound, To many a youth and many a maid, Dancing in the chequered shade, And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday, Till the live-long daylight fail; Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How faery Mab the junkets eat; She was pinched and pulled, she said; And he, by Friar's lantern led, Tells how the drudging goblin sweat, To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down, the lubber-fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. Towered cities please us then, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold, In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend. There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream, On summer-eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning The melting voice through mazes running Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head, From golden slumber on a bed Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto, to have quite set free His half-regained Eurydic�. These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

51. Il Penseroso.

Hence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred! How little you bested, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, Or likest hovering dreams, The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. But hail, thou Goddess sage and holy! Hail, divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above The Sea-Nymphs', and their powers offended: Yet thou art higher far descended. Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she; in Saturn's reign Such mixture was not held a stain. Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, While yet there was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain, Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of Cyprus lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes; There, held in holy passion still, Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad, leaden, downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast. And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, And hears the Muses in a ring Aye round about Jove's altar sing; And add to these retired Leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure. But, first and chiefest, with thee bring Him that yon soars on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The Cherub Contemplation; And the mute Silence hist along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest, saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night; While Cynthia checks her dragon-yoke, Gently o'er the accustomed oak. Sweet bird, that shunnest the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chantress, oft the woods among I woo to hear thy even-song; And missing thee I walk unseen, On the dry, smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that has been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way, And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft, on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off curfew sound, Over some wide-watered shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar; Or, if the air will not permit, Some still, removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman's drowsy charm, To bless the doors from nightly harm; Or let my lamp, at midnight-hour, Be seen in some high, lonely tower, Where I may oft out-watch the Bear, With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold The immortal mind, that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook; And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or underground, Whose power hath a true consent With planet, or with element. Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine, Or what, though rare, of later age Ennobled hath the buskined stage. But, O sad Virgin! that thy power Might raise Mus�us from his bower, Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as warbled to the string Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, And made Hell grant what love did seek; Or call up him that left half-told The story of Cambuscan bold, Of Camball, and of Algarsife, And who had Canac� to wife, That owned the virtuous ring and glass; And of the wondrous horse of brass, On which the Tartar king did ride; And if ought else great bards beside In sage and solemn tunes have sung, Of tourneys and of trophies hung, Of forests and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the ear. Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear, Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kerchiefed in a comely cloud, While rocking winds are piping loud, Or ushered with a shower still, When the gust hath blown his fill, Ending on the rustling leaves, With minute-drops from off the eaves. And when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, Of pine, or monumental oak, Where the rude axe with heaved stroke Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt, Or fright them from their hallowed haunt There, in close covert by some brook, Where no profaner eye may look, Hide me from day's garish eye, While the bee with honeyed thigh, That at her flowery work doth sing, And the waters murmuring, With such concert as they keep, Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep. And let some strange, mysterious dream Wave at his wings, in aery stream Of lively portraiture displayed, Softly on my eyelids laid; And, as I wake, sweet music breathe Above, about, or underneath, Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, Or the unseen Genius of the wood. But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antic pillars massy-proof And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced quire below, In service high, and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit, and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew; Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. These pleasures, Melancholy, give, And I with thee will choose to live.

52. Lycidas.

In this Monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester, on the Irish Sea, 1637; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compel me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rime. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear. Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse-- So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn, And as he passes turn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud-- For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill; Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright, Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Tempered to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. But oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes mourn. The willows, and the hazel-copses green, Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherds' ear. Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. Ay me, I fondly dream! Had ye been there ... for what could that have done? What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, The Muse herself for her enchanting son, Whom universal Nature did lament, When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Ne�ra's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise --That last infirmity of noble mind-- To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the praise,' Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears. 'Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set-off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.' O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, That strain I heard was of a higher mood. But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea, That came in Neptune's plea. He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain? And questioned every gust of rugged wings, That blows from off each beaked promontory. They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed; The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panop� with all her sisters played. It was that fatal and perfidious bark, Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. 'Ah! who hath reft,' quoth he, 'my dearest pledge?' Last came, and last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain-- The golden opes, the iron shuts amain. He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: 'How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake, Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest. Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least That to the faithful herdman's art belongs! What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Beside what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said. But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.' Return, Alphe�s, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks; Throw hither all your quaint-enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears; Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate herse where Lycid lies. For so, to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise, Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleepest by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great Vision of the guarded mount Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold.... Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth; And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, Where, other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, And hears the unexpressive nuptial song, In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. There entertain him all the saints above, In solemn troops, and sweet societies, That sing, and singing in their glory move, And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, In thy large recompense, and shalt be good To all that wander in that perilous flood. Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still Morn went out with sandals gray; He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay; And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropped into the western bay. At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue; To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

53. On His Blindness.

When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He, returning, chide; 'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: 'God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly. Thousands, at his bidding, speed And post o'er land and ocean, without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.'

Keightley's Text.

LADY NAIRNE.

54. The Land o' the Leal.

I'm wearin' awa', John, Like snaw when it's thaw, John, I'm wearin' awa' To the land o' the leal.

There's nae sorrow there, John, There's neither cauld nor care, John, The day's aye fair In the land o' the leal.

Our bonnie bairn's there, John, She was baith gude and fair, John, And oh! we grudged her sair To the land o' the leal.

But sorrow's sel' wears past, John, And joy is comin' fast, John, The joy that's aye to last In the land o' the leal.

Sae dear's that joy was bought, John, Sae free the battle fought, John, That sinfu' man e'er brought To the land o' the leal.

Oh! dry your glist'ning e'e, John, My soul langs to be free, John, And angels beckon me To the land o' the leal.

Noo, haud ye leal and true, John, Your day it's weel near through, John, And I'll welcome you To the land o' the leal.

Noo, fare-ye-weel, my ain John, This warld's cares are vain, John, We'll meet, and we'll be fain, In the land o' the leal.

Henderson's Text.

ALEXANDER POPE.

55. Ode on Solitude.

Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire, Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years slide soft away, In health of body, peace of mind, Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease, Together mix'd; sweet recreation; And innocence, which most does please With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

1735 Edition.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

56. The Night before his Death.

Even such is time, that takes on trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with age and dust; Who in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days! But from this earth, this grave, this dust, The Lord shall raise me up, I trust!

1829 Edition.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

57. A Wish.

Mine be a cot beside the hill; A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch, Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivied porch shall spring Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew; And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing In russet-gown and apron blue.

The village-church, among the trees, Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze, And point with taper spire to heaven.

1846 Edition.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

58. Sonnets.

Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill'd with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.' So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage And stretched metre of an antique song: But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice, in it and in my rhyme.

59. XVIII.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

60. XXX.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end.

61. XXXIII.

Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: Even so my sun one early morn did shine With all-triumphant splendour on my brow; But, out, alack! he was but one hour mine, The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

62. LX.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

63. LXVI.

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill: Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

64. LXXI.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. O, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.

65. LXXIII.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

66. LXXIV.

But be contented: when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee: The earth can have but earth, which is his due; My spirit is thine, the better part of me: So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, The prey of worms, my body being dead; The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, Too base of thee to be remembered. The worth of that is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains.

67. CVI.

When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring; And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

68. CXVI.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

69. Song from 'The Tempest.'

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them,-- Ding-dong, bell.

70. Song from 'Measure for Measure.'

Take, O, take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn: But my kisses bring again, bring again; Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.

71. Song from 'Much Ado about Nothing.'

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy: Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny.

72. Song from 'Cymbeline.'

Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finish'd joy and moan: All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have; And renowned be thy grave!

Cambridge Shakespeare Text.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

73. Song from 'Prometheus Unbound.'

On a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses But feeds on the a�rial kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, Nor heed nor see, what things they be; But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality! One of these awakened me, And I sped to succour thee.

74. Ode to the West Wind.

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O, thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wing�d seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving every where; Destroyer and preserver; hear, O, hear!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce M�nad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O, hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Bai�'s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O, hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O, uncontroulable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

75. The Cloud.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noon-day dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits, In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove.

That orb�d maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-coloured bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.

76. To a Skylark.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its a�rial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wing�d thieves:

Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass:

Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymen�al, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

77. Chorus from 'Hellas.'

The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning-star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore.

O, write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, The splendour of its prime; And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers.

O cease! must hate and death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, O might it die or rest at last!

78. Stanzas. Written in Dejection, near Naples.

The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might, The breath of the moist earth is light, Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor With green and purple seaweeds strown; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: I sit upon the sands alone, The lightning of the noon-tide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned-- Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround-- Smiling they live and call life pleasure;-- To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan; They might lament--for I am one Whom men love not,--and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall in its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

79. The Indian Serenade.

I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright: I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Hath led me--who knows how? To thy chamber window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream-- And the Champak's odours fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart;-- As I must on thine, O! belov�d as thou art!

O lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast;-- Oh! press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last.

80. To ----.

I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden, Thou needest not fear mine; My spirit is too deeply laden Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Thou needest not fear mine; Innocent is the heart's devotion With which I worship thine.

81. To Night.

Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear,-- Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; Kiss her until she be wearied out, Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand-- Come, long sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn, I sigh'd for thee; When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turned to his rest, Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried, Wouldst thou me? Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noon-tide bee, Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me?--And I replied, No, not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon-- Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, belov�d Night-- Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon!

JAMES SHIRLEY.

82. Song from 'Ajax and Ulysses.'

The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings: Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field, And plant fresh laurels where they kill; But their strong nerves at last must yield; They tame but one another still: Early or late, They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath, When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow, Then boast no more your mighty deeds; Upon Death's purple altar now, See, where the victor-victim bleeds: Your heads must come To the cold tomb, Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

Dyce's Text.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

83. Stanzas.

My days among the Dead are past; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast The mighty minds of old; My never failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal, And seek relief in woe; And while I understand and feel How much to them I owe, My cheeks have often been bedew'd With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead, with them I live in long-past years, Their virtues love, their faults condemn, Partake their hopes and fears, And from their lessons seek and find Instruction with an humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead, anon My place with them will be, And I with them shall travel on Through all Futurity; Yet leaving here a name, I trust, That will not perish in the dust.

1837 Edition.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

84. Requiem.

Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

1887 Edition.

LORD TENNYSON.

85. Song from 'The Miller's Daughter.'

It is the miller's daughter, And she is grown so dear, so dear, That I would be the jewel That trembles in her ear: For hid in ringlets day and night, I'd touch her neck so warm and white.

And I would be the girdle About her dainty dainty waist, And her heart would beat against me, In sorrow and in rest: And I should know if it beat right, I'd clasp it round so close and tight.

And I would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom, With her laughter or her sighs, And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasp'd at night.

86. St. Agnes' Eve.

Deep on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon: My breath to heaven like vapour goes: May my soul follow soon! The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord: Make Thou my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies, Or this first snowdrop of the year That in my bosom lies.

As these white robes are soil'd and dark, To yonder shining ground; As this pale taper's earthly spark, To yonder argent round; So shows my soul before the Lamb, My spirit before Thee; So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Thro' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean.

He lifts me to the golden doors; The flashes come and go; All heaven bursts her starry floors, And strows her lights below, And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin. The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide-- A light upon the shining sea-- The Bridegroom with his bride!

87. Break, break, break.

Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad. That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

88. Song from 'The Princess.'

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

89. Song from 'The Princess.'

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: I strove against the stream and all in vain: Let the great river take me to the main: No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.

90. Crossing the Bar.

Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar.

1902 Edition.

EDMUND WALLER.

91. On a Girdle.

That which her slender waist confined, Shall now my joyful temples bind: No monarch but would give his crown, His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer. My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move!

A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair: Give me but what this ribbon bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round.

92. Song.

Go, lovely Rose! Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young, And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts, where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired: Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee, How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

93. She dwelt among the untrodden ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! --Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

94. She was a Phantom of delight

She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin-liberty; A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A Creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A Being breathing thoughtful breath, A Traveller between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light.

95. Sonnets.

PART I.--XXXIII.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreath�d horn.

96. PART II.--XXXVI.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would be he of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

97. To a Highland Girl, at Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond.

Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower Of beauty is thy earthly dower! Twice seven consenting years have shed Their utmost bounty on thy head: And these gray rocks; that household lawn; Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn; This fall of water that doth make A murmur near the silent lake; This little bay; a quiet road That holds in shelter thy Abode-- In truth together do ye seem Like something fashioned in a dream; Such Forms as from their covert peep When earthly cares are laid asleep! But, O fair Creature! in the light Of common day, so heavenly bright, I bless Thee, Vision as thou art, I bless thee with a human heart; God shield thee to thy latest years! Thee, neither know I, nor thy peers; And yet my eyes are filled with tears.

With earnest feeling I shall pray For thee when I am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such as springs From quick and eager visitings Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach Of thy few words of English speech: A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife That gives thy gestures grace and life! So have I, not unmoved in mind, Seen birds of tempest-loving kind-- Thus beating up against the wind.

What hand but would a garland cull For thee who art so beautiful. O happy pleasure! here to dwell Beside thee in some heathy dell; Adopt your homely ways, and dress, A Shepherd, thou a Shepherdess! But I could frame a wish for thee More like a grave reality: Thou art to me but as a wave Of the wild sea; and I would have Some claim upon thee, if I could, Though but of common neighbourhood. What joy to hear thee, and to see! Thy elder Brother I would be, Thy Father--anything to thee!

Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace Hath led me to this lonely place. Joy have I had; and going hence I bear away my recompense. In spots like these it is we prize Our Memory, feel that she hath eyes: Then, why should I be loth to stir? I feel this place was made for her; To give new pleasure like the past, Continued long as life shall last. Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart, Sweet Highland Girl! from thee to part; For I, methinks, till I grow old, As fair before me shall behold, As I do now, the cabin small, The lake, the bay, the waterfall; And Thee, the Spirit of them all!

98. The Solitary Reaper.

Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings?-- Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;-- I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.

99. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.

The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;-- Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare, Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng, The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every Beast keep holiday; Thou Child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy!

Ye bless�d Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all. O evil day! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the Children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:-- I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! --But there's a Tree, of many, one, A single Field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone: The Pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a Mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' Darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little Actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage' With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul's immensity; Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,-- Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by; To whom the grave Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight Of day or the warm light, A place of thought where we in waiting lie; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-- Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never: Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young Lambs bound As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Hutchinson's Text.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

100. On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia.

You meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes, More by your number, than your light, You common people of the skies; What are you when the moon shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood, That warble forth Dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood By your weak accents; what's your praise, When Philomel her voice shall raise?

You violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles known, Like the proud virgins of the year, As if the spring were all your own; What are you when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress shall be seen In form and beauty of her mind, By virtue first, then choice, a Queen, Tell me if she were not design'd Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

1845 Edition.

Transcriber's Note

Sonnet numbers found in the original text have been added in the Table of Contents for consistency.

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