The
                              Oxford Book
                           Of English Verse

                               1250-1900




                         _Impression of 1931_
                         _First edition, 1900_




                                  The
                              Oxford Book
                           Of English Verse
                               1250-1900

                          Chosen & Edited by
                         Arthur Quiller-Couch

                                Oxford
                        At the Clarendon Press




                       PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

                                  TO

                             THE PRESIDENT

                         FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS

                                  OF

                        TRINITY COLLEGE OXFORD

                          A HOUSE OF LEARNING

                        ANCIENT LIBERAL HUMANE

                       AND MY MOST KINDLY NURSE




PREFACE


For this Anthology I have tried to range over the whole field of English
Verse from the beginning, or from the Thirteenth Century to this closing
year of the Nineteenth, and to choose the best. Nor have I sought in
these Islands only, but wheresoever the Muse has followed the tongue
which among living tongues she most delights to honour. To bring home
and render so great a spoil compendiously has been my capital
difficulty. It is for the reader to judge if I have so managed it as to
serve those who already love poetry and to implant that love in some
young minds not yet initiated.

My scheme is simple. I have arranged the poets as nearly as possible in
order of birth, with such groupings of anonymous pieces as seemed
convenient. For convenience, too, as well as to avoid a dispute-royal, I
have gathered the most of the Ballads into the middle of the Seventeenth
Century; where they fill a languid interval between two winds of
inspiration--the Italian dying down with Milton and the French following
at the heels of the restored Royalists. For convenience, again, I have
set myself certain rules of spelling. In the very earliest poems
inflection and spelling are structural, and to modernize is to destroy.
But as old inflections fade into modern the old spelling becomes less
and less vital, and has been brought (not, I hope, too abruptly) into
line with that sanctioned by use and familiar. To do this seemed wiser
than to discourage many readers for the sake of diverting others by a
scent of antiquity which--to be essential--should breathe of something
rarer than an odd arrangement of type. But there are scholars whom I
cannot expect to agree with me; and to conciliate them I have excepted
Spenser and Milton from the rule.

Glosses of archaic and otherwise difficult words are given at the foot
of the page: but the text has not been disfigured with reference-marks.
And rather than make the book unwieldy I have eschewed
notes--reluctantly when some obscure passage or allusion seemed to ask
for a timely word; with more equanimity when the temptation was to
criticize or ‘appreciate.’ For the function of the anthologist includes
criticizing in silence.

Care has been taken with the texts. But I have sometimes thought it
consistent with the aim of the book to prefer the more beautiful to the
better attested reading. I have often excised weak or superfluous
stanzas when sure that excision would improve; and have not hesitated to
extract a few stanzas from a long poem when persuaded that they could
stand alone as a lyric. The apology for such experiments can only lie in
their success: but the risk is one which, in my judgement, the
anthologist ought to take. A few small corrections have been made, but
only when they were quite obvious.

The numbers chosen are either lyrical or epigrammatic. Indeed I am
mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some
faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the
Muse’s lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation. But the
lyrical spirit is volatile and notoriously hard to bind with
definitions; and seems to grow wilder with the years. With the
anthologist--as with the fisherman who knows the fish at the end of his
sea-line--the gift, if he have it, comes by sense, improved by practice.
The definition, if he be clever enough to frame one, comes by
after-thought. I don’t know that it helps, and am sure that it may
easily mislead.

Having set my heart on choosing the best, I resolved not to be dissuaded
by common objections against anthologies--that they repeat one another
until the proverb δὶς ἢ τρὶς τὰ καλά loses all application--or perturbed
if my judgement should often agree with that of good critics. The best
is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so; nor had it
been any feat to search out and insert the second-rate merely because it
happened to be recondite. To be sure, a man must come to such a task as
mine haunted by his youth and the favourites he loved in days when he
had much enthusiasm but little reading.

                A deeper import
    Lurks in the legend told my infant years
    Than lies upon that truth we live to learn.

Few of my contemporaries can erase--or would wish to erase--the dye
their minds took from the late Mr. Palgrave’s _Golden Treasury_: and he
who has returned to it again and again with an affection born of
companionship on many journeys must remember not only what the _Golden
Treasury_ includes, but the moment when this or that poem appealed to
him, and even how it lies on the page. To Mr. Bullen’s _Lyrics from the
Elizabethan Song Books_ and his other treasuries I own a more advised
debt. Nor am I free of obligation to anthologies even more recent--to
Archbishop Trench’s _Household Book of Poetry_, Mr. Locker-Lampson’s
_Lyra Elegantiarum_, Mr. Miles’ _Poets and Poetry of the Century_, Mr.
Beeching’s _Paradise of English Poetry_, Mr. Henley’s _English Lyrics_,
Mrs. Sharp’s _Lyra Celtica_, Mr. Yeats’ _Book of Irish Verse_, and Mr.
Churton Collins’ _Treasury of Minor British Poetry_: though my rule has
been to consult these after making my own choice. Yet I can claim that
the help derived from them--though gratefully owned--bears but a
trifling proportion to the labour, special and desultory, which has gone
to the making of my book.

For the anthologist’s is not quite the _dilettante_ business for which
it is too often and ignorantly derided. I say this, and immediately
repent; since my wish is that the reader should in his own pleasure
quite forget the editor’s labour, which too has been pleasant: that,
standing aside, I may believe this book has made the Muses’ access
easier when, in the right hour, they come to him to uplift or to
console--

    ἄκλητος μὲν ἔγωγε μὲνοιμί κεν ἐς δὲ καλεύντων
    θαρσήσας Μοίσαισι σὺν ἁμετέραισιν ἱκοίμαν

My thanks are here tendered to those who have helped me with permission
to include recent poems: to Mr. A. C. Benson, Mr. Laurence Binyon, Mr.
Wilfrid Blunt, Mr. Robert Bridges, Mr. John Davidson, Mr. Austin Dobson,
Mr. Aubrey de Vere, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Bret Harte, Mr. W. E. Henley,
Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson, Mr. W. D. Howells, Dr. Douglas Hyde, Mr.
Rudyard Kipling, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, Mr. George
Meredith, Mrs. Meynell, Mr. T. Sturge Moore, Mr. Henry Newbolt, Mr.
Gilbert Parker, Mr. T. W. Rolleston, Mr. George Russell (‘A. E.’), Mrs.
Clement Shorter (Dora Sigerson), Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Francis Thompson,
Dr. Todhunter, Mr. William Watson, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mrs. Woods, and Mr.
W. B. Yeats; to the Earl of Crewe for a poem by the late Lord Houghton;
to Lady Ferguson, Mrs. Allingham, Mrs. A. H. Clough, Mrs.
Locker-Lampson, Mrs. Coventry Patmore; to the Lady Betty Balfour and the
Lady Victoria Buxton for poems by the late Earl of Lytton and the Hon.
Roden Noel; to the executors of Messrs. Frederic Tennyson (Captain
Tennyson and Mr. W. C. A. Ker), Charles Tennyson Turner (Sir Franklin
Lushington), Edward FitzGerald (Mr. Aldis Wright), William Bell Scott
(Mrs. Sydney Morse and Miss Boyd of Penkill Castle, who has added to her
kindness by allowing me to include an unpublished ‘Sonet’ by her
sixteenth-century ancestor, Mark Alexander Boyd), William Philpot (Mr.
Hamlet S. Philpot), William Morris (Mr. S. C. Cockerell), William
Barnes, and R. L. Stevenson; to the Rev. H. C. Beeching for two poems
from his own works, and leave to use his redaction of _Quia Amore
Langueo_; to Messrs. Macmillan for confirming permission for the
extracts from FitzGerald, Christina Rossetti, and T. E. Brown, and
particularly for allowing me to insert the latest emendations in Lord
Tennyson’s non-copyright poems; to the proprietors of Mr. and Mrs.
Browning’s copyrights and to Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for a similar
favour, also for a copyright poem by Mrs. Browning; to Mr. George Allen
for extracts from Ruskin and the author of _Ionica_; to Messrs. G. Bell
& Sons for poems by Thomas Ashe; to Messrs. Chatto & Windus for poems by
Arthur O’Shaughnessy and Dr. George MacDonald, and for confirming Mr.
Bret Harte’s permission; to Mr. Elkin Mathews for a poem by Mr. Bliss
Carman; to Mr. John Lane for two poems by William Brighty Rands; to the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge for two extracts from
Christina Rossetti’s _Verses_; and to Mr. Bertram Dobell, who allows me
not only to select from James Thomson but to use a poem of Traherne’s, a
seventeenth-century singer rediscovered by him. To mention all who in
other ways have furthered me is not possible in this short Preface;
which, however, must not conclude without a word of special thanks to
Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll for many suggestions and some pains kindly
bestowed, and to Professor F. York Powell, whose help and wise counsel
have been as generously given as they were eagerly sought, adding me to
the number of those many who have found his learning to be his friends’
good fortune.

                                                               A.T.Q.C.

_October 1900_




CONTENTS


NUMBER                                                      PAGE

1-7.      Anonymous. XIII-XIV Century.....1-10

8.        Robert Mannyng of Brunne. b. 1260, d. 1340......10

9.        John Barbour. d. 1395.....10-11

10-12.    Geoffrey Chaucer. b. ? 1340, d. 1400.....11-14

13.       Thomas Hoccleve. b. 1368-9, d. ? 1450.....14-15

14.       John Lydgate.    b. ? 1370, d. ? 1450.....15

15.       King James I of Scotland. b. 1394, d. 1437.....15

16-17.    Robert Henryson. b. 1425, d. ? 1500.....16-25

18-21.    William Dunbar. b. 1465, d. ? 1520.....25-33

22-29.    Anonymous. XV-XVI Century.....33-57

30-31.    John Skelton. b. ? 1460, d. 1529.....57-59

32-33.    Stephen Hawes. d. 1523.....59-60

34-38.    Sir Thomas Wyatt. b. 1503, d. 1542.....60-65

39-41.    Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey b. 1516, d. 1547.....65-68

42.       Nicholas Grimald. b. 1519, d. 1562.....68-69

43-44.    Alexander Scott. b. ? 1520, d. 158-.....69-71

45.       Robert Wever.    _c._ 1550.....72

46.       Richard Edwardes. b. 1523, d. 1566.....72-73

47.       George Gascoigne. b. 1523, d. 1566.....74-75

48.       Alexander Mongtomerie. b. ? 1540, d. ? 1610.....75-77

49.       William Stevenson. b. 1530, d. 1575.....77-78

50-72.    Anonymous. XVI-XVII Century.....79-99

73-74.    Nicholas Breton. b. 1542, d. 1626.....100-102

75-78.    Sir Walter Raleigh. b. 1552, d. 1618.....102-104

79-84.    Edmund Spenser. b. 1552, d. 1599.....104-129

85-86.    John Lyly. b. 1533, d. 1606.....129-130

87.       Anthony Munday. b. 1553, d. 1633.....130

88-95.    Sir Philip Sidney. b. 1554, d. 1586.....131-136

96.       Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. b. 1554, d. 1628.....136-137

97-100.   Thomas Lodge. b. ? 1556, d. 1625.....137-141

101-102.  George Peele. b. ? 1558, d. 1597.....141-143

103-105.  Robert Greene. b. ? 1560, d. 1592.....143-145

106.      Alexander Hume. b. 1560, d. 1609.....146-150

107.      George Chapman. b. 1560, d. 1634.....150

108-109.  Robert Southwell. b. 1561, d. 1595.....151-153

110.      Henry Constable. b. ? 1562, d. ? 1613.....153

111-113. Samuel Daniel. b. 1562, d. 1619.....153-159

114.     Mark Alexander Boyd. b. 1563, d. 1601.....160

115.     Joshua Sylvester, b. 1563, d. 1618......160-161

116-120. Michael Drayton. b. 1563, d. 1631.....161-173

121.     Christopher Marlowe. b. 1564, d. 1593.....173-174

122.     Sir Walter Raleigh. b. 1552, d. 1618.....174-175

123-164. William Shakespeare. b. 1564, d. 1616.....175-200

165.     Richard Rowlands. b. 1565, d. ? 1630.....200-201

166-167. Thomas Nashe. b. 1567, d. 1601.....201-203

168-176. Thomas Campion. b. ? 1567, d. 1619.....203-209

177.     John Reynolds. XVI Century.....209-210

178-180. Sir Henry Wotton. b. 1568, d. 1639.....210-212

181.     Sir John Davies. b. 1569, d. 1626.....212-213

182-183. Sir Robert Ayton. b. 1570, d. 1638.....213-215

184-194. Ben Jonson.    b. 1573, d. 1637.....215-225

195-202. John Donne. b. 1573, d. 1631.....225-231

203.     Richard Barnefield. b. 1574, d. 1627.....232

204.     Thomas Dekker. b. 1575, d. 1641.....233

205-206. Thomas Heywood. b. ? 157-, d. 1650.....233-235

207-217. John Fletcher. b. 1579, d. 1625.....235-241

218-220. John Webster. d. ? 1630.....242-243

221.     William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. b. ? 1580,
d. 1640.....243-244

222.     Phineas Fletcher. b. 1580, d. 1650.....244

223.     Sir John Beaumont. b. 1583, d. 1627.....245

224-232. William Drummond, of Hawthornden. b. 1585,
d. 1649.....245-250

233.     Giles Fletcher. b. 158-, d. 1623.....250-252

234.     Francis Beaumont. b. 1586, d. 1616.....252

235.     John Ford. b. 1586, d. 1639.....253

236-239. George Wither. b. 1588, d. 1667.....253-260

240-246. William Browne, of Tavistock. b. 1588, d. 1643.....260-264

247-275. Robert Herrick. b. 1591, d. 1674.....264-284

276-277. Francis Quarles. b. 1592, d. 1644.....285

278-280. Henry King, Bishop of Chichester. b. 1592,
d. 1669.....286-290

281-286. George Herbert. b. 1593, d. 1632.....290-295

287-288. James Shirley. b. 1596, d. 1666.....295-296

289-295. Thomas Carew. b ? 1595, d. ? 1639.....297-301

296.     Jasper Mayne. b. 1604, d. 1672.....301-302

297-298. William Habington. b. 1605, d. 1654.....302-304

299-300. Thomas Randolph. b. 1605, d. 1635.....305-308

301-303. Sir William Davenant. b. 1606, d. 1668.....308-309

304-306. Edmund Waller. b. 1606, d. 1687.....310-311

307-324. John Milton. b. 1608, d. 1674.....311-347

325-328. Sir John Suckling. b. 1609, d. 1642.....347-350

329.     Sir Richard Fanshawe. b. 1608, d. 1666.....350

330-333. William Cartwright. b. 1611, d. 1643.....351-353

334.     James Graham, Marquis of Montrose. b. 1612,
d. 1650.....353-354

335.     Thomas Jordan. b. ? 1612, d. 1685.....354-355

336-342. Richard Crashaw. b. ? 1613, d. 1649.....355-370

343-348. Richard Lovelace. b. 1618, d. 1658.....370-374

349-353. Abraham Cowley. b. 1618, d. 1667.....374-380

354.     Alexander Brome. b. 1620, d. 1666.....381

355-361. Andrew Marvell. b. 1621, d. 1678.....382-394

362-365. Henry Vaughan. b. 1621, d. 1695.....395-399

366.     John Bunyan. b. 1628, d. 1688.....399

367-392. Anonymous: Ballads.....400-459

393.     William Strode. b. 1602, d. 1645.....459

394.     Thomas Stanley. b. 1625, d. 1678.....460

395.     Thomas D’Urfey. b. 1653, d. 1723.....460-461

396.     Charles Cotton. b. 1630, d. 1687.....461

397.     Katherine Philips (‘Orinda’). b. 1631, d. 1664.....462

398-402. John Dryden. b. 1631, d. 1700.....462-471

403.     Charles Webbe. c. 1678.....472

404-405. Sir George Etherege. b. 1635, d. 1691.....472-473

406.     Thomas Traherne. b. ? 1637, d. 1674.....473-475

407.     Thomas Flatman. b. 1637, d. 1688.....475-476

408.     Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset. b. 1638,
d. 1706.....476-478

409-410. Sir Charles Sedley. b. 1639, d. 1701.....479-480

411-412. Aphra Behn. b. 1640, d. 1689.....480-481

413-416. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. b. 1647,
d. 1680.....481-484

417-418. John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire.
b. 1649, d. 1720.....485-486

419.     Thomas Otway. b. 1652, d. 1685.....486

420.     John Oldham. b. 1653, d. 1683.....487

421.     John Cutts, Lord Cutts. b. 1661, d. 1707.....487

422-428. Matthew Prior. b. 1664, d. 1721.....488-493

429.     William Walsh. b. 1663, d. 1708.....493

430.     Lady Grisel Baillie. b. 1665, d. 1746.....494-495

431-432. William Congreve. b. 1670, d. 1729.....495-496

433.     Joseph Addison. b. 1672, d. 1719.....496-497

434-435. Isaac Watts. b. 1674, d. 1748.....497-500

436.     Thomas Parnell. b. 1679, d. 1718.....501

437.     Allan Ramsay. b. 1686, d. 1758.....501-502

438.     William Oldys. b. 1687, d. 1761.....503

439.     John Gay. b. 1688, d. 1732.....503

440-442. Alexander Pope. b. 1688, d. 1744.....504-507

443.     George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe.
b. 1691, d. 1762.....508

444-445. Henry Carey. b. ? 1693, d. 1743.....509-511

446-447. William Broome. d. 1745.....511-512

448.     James Thomson. b. 1700, d. 1748.....512

449.     George Lyttelton, Lord Lyttelton. b. 1709,
d. 1773.....512-513

450-451. Samuel Johnson. b. 1709, d. 1784.....513-516

452.     Richard Jago. b. 1715, d. 1781.....516

453-456. Thomas Gray. b. 1716, d. 1771.....516-528

457-460. William Collins. b. 1721, d. 1759.....528-533

461-463. Mark Akenside. b. 1721, d. 1770.....534-537

464.     Tobias George Smollett. b. 1721, d. 1771.....538

465.     Christopher Smart. b. 1722, d. 1770.....538-542

466.     Jane Elliot. b. 1727, d. 1805.....542-543

467-468. Oliver Goldsmith. b. 1728, d. 1774.....543-544

469.     Robert Cunninghame-Graham of Gartmore.
b. 1735, d. 1797.....544-545

470-471. William Cowper. b. 1731, d. 1800.....545-547

472.     James Beattie. b. 1735, d. 1803.....548

473.     Isobel Pagan. b. 1740, d. 1821.....548-549

474.     Anna Lætitia Barbauld. b. 1743, d. 1825.....549-550

475.     Fanny Greville. XVIII Century.....550-551

476.     John Logan. b. 1748, d. 1788.....551-552

477.     Lady Anne Lindsay. b. 1750, d. 1825.....552-553

478.     Sir William Jones. b. 1746, d. 1794.....554

479.     Thomas Chatterton. b. 1752, d. 1770.....554-556

480-482. George Crabbe. b. 1754, d. 1832.....556-557

483-492. William Blake. b. 1757, d. 1827.....558-566

493-506. Robert Burns. b. 1759, d. 1796.....566-577

507-508. Henry Rowe. b. 1750, d. 1819.....578-579

509.     William Lisle Bowles. b. 1762, d. 1850.....579

510.     Joanna Baillie. b. 1762, d. 1851.....580

511.     Mary Lamb. b. 1765, d. 1847.....581

512.     Carolina, Lady Nairne. b. 1766, d. 1845.....581-582

513-514. James Hogg. b. 1770, d. 1835.....582-594

515-541. William Wordsworth. b. 1770, d. 1850.....594-618

542-548. Sir Walter Scott. b. 1771, d. 1832.....619-628

549-555. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. b. 1772, d. 1834.....628-658

556.     Robert Southey. b. 1774, d. 1843.....658-659

557-576. Walter Savage Landor. b. 1775, d. 1864.....659-667

577-579. Charles Lamb. b. 1775, d. 1834.....668-672

580-581. Thomas Campbell. b. 1777, d. 1844.....672-675

582-585. Thomas Moore. b. 1779, d. 1852.....675-678

586.     Edward Thurlow, Lord Thurlow. b. 1781,
d. 1829.....678-679

587-588. Ebenezer Elliott. b. 1781, d. 1849.....679-681

589-591. Allan Cunningham. b. 1784, d. 1842.....681-683

592.     Leigh Hunt. b. 1784, d. 1859.....683

593-595. Thomas Love Peacock. b. 1785, d. 1866.....684-687

596.     Caroline Southey. b. 1787, d. 1854.....687-688

597-601. George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron. b. 1788,
d. 1824.....688-694

602.     Sir Aubrey de Vere. b. 1788, d. 1846.....694-695

603-604. Charles Wolfe. b. 1791, d. 1823.....695-697

605-618. Percy Bysshe Shelley. b. 1792, d. 1822.....697-717

619.     Hew Ainslie. b. 1792, d. 1878.....717

620.     John Keble. b. 1792, d. 1866.....718-720

621.     John Clare. b. 1793, d. 1864.....720

622.     Felicia Dorothea Hemans. b. 1793, d. 1835.....721

623-637. John Keats. b. 1795, d. 1821.....721-744

638.     Jeremiah Joseph Callanan. b. 1795, d. 1839.....745

639.     William Sidney Walker. b. 1795, d. 1846.....746

640-642. George Darley. b. 1795, d. 1846.....746-749

643-646. Hartley Coleridge. b. 1796, d. 1849.....749-751

647-654. Thomas Hood. b. 1798, d. 1845.....752-762

655.     William Thom. b. 1798, d. 1848.....762-764

656.     Sir Henry Taylor. b. 1800, d. 1886.....764

657.     Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay.
b. 1800, d. 1859.....765

658-659. William Barnes. b. 1801, d. 1886.....765-767

660.     Winthrop Mackworth Praed. b. 1802, d. 1839.....767-768

661-662. Sara Coleridge. b. 1802, d. 1850.....768-770

663.     Gerald Griffin. b. 1803, d. 1840.....770-772

664-665. James Clarence Mangan. b. 1803. d. 1849.....772-776

666-668. Thomas Lovell Beddoes. b. 1803, d. 1849.....777-778

669-672. Ralph Waldo Emerson. b. 1803, d. 1882.....779-785

673.     Richard Henry Horne. b. 1803, d. 1884.....785-786

674-675. Robert Stephen Hawker. b. 1804, d. 1875.....786-787

676.     Thomas Wade. b. 1805, d. 1875.....787

677.     Francis Mahony. b. 1805, d. 1866.....788-790

678-687. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. b. 1806, d. 1861.....790-800

688.     Frederick Tennyson. b. 1807, d. 1898.....800

689.     Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. b. 1807, d. 1882.....801-803

690.     John Greenleaf Whittier. b. 1807, d. 1892.....804

691.     Helen Selina, Lady Dufferin. b. 1807, d. 1867.....805-807

692.     Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton. b. 1808,
d. 1876.....807-808

693.     Charles Tennyson Turner. b. 1808, d. 1879.....808

694-696. Edgar Allan Poe. b. 1809, d. 1849.....809-814

697-698. Edward Fitzgerald. b. 1809, d. 1883.....814-818

699-709. Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson. b. 1809,
d. 1892.....819-847

710.     Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton.
b. 1809, d. 1885.....848

711.     Henry Alford. b. 1810, d. 1871.....849

712-714. Sir Samuel Ferguson. b. 1810, d. 1886.....849-851

715-730. Robert Browning. b. 1812, d. 1889.....852-867

731.     William Bell Scott. b. 1812, d. 1890.....867-872

732-733. Aubrey De Vere. b. 1814, d. 1902.....872-873

734.     George Fox. b. 1815.....874

735-738. Emily Brontë. b. 1818, d. 1848.....875-879

739-740. Charles Kingsley. b. 1819, d. 1875.....879-880

741.     Arthur Hugh Clough. b. 1819, d. 1861.....880-881

742-743. Walt Whitman. b. 1819, d. 1892.....881-882

744.     John Ruskin. b. 1819, d. 1900.....882

745.     Ebenezer Jones. b. 1820, d. 1860.....883

746.     Frederick Locker-Lampson. b. 1821, d. 1895.....884

747-754. Matthew Arnold. b. 1822, d. 1888.....885-903

755-756. William Brighty Rands. b. 1823, d. 1880.....904-905

757.     William Philpot. b. 1823, d. 1880.....906-907

758-759. William (Johnson) Cory. b. 1823, d. 1892.....907-908

760-764. Coventry Patmore. b. 1823, d. 1896.....908-913

765-768. Sydney Dobell. b. 1824, d. 1874.....913-921

769.     William Allingham. b. 1824, d. 1889.....921-923

770.     George MacDonald. b. 1824, d. 1905.....923

771.     Dante Gabriel Rossetti. b. 1828, d. 1882.....923-928

772-776. George Meredith. b. 1828, d. 1909.....929-942

777-778. Alexander Smith. b. 1829, d. 1867.....942-945

779-789. Christina Georgina Rossetti. b. 1830, d. 1894.....946-954

790-793. Thomas Edward Brown. b. 1830, d. 1897.....955-956

794-795. Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, Earl of Lytton.
b. 1831, d. 1892.....957-962

796-799. James Thomson. b. 1834, d. 1882.....963-964

800-802. William Morris. b. 1834, d. 1896.....965-967

803-804. Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel. b. 1834,
d. 1894.....967-969

805-806. Thomas Ashe. b. 1836, d. 1889.....969-970

807.     Theodore Watts-Dunton. b. 1836, d. 1914.....970-972

808-811. Algernon Charles Swinburne. b. 1837, d. 1909.....972-991

812.     William Dean Howells. b. 1837.....991

813.     Bret Harte. b. 1839, d. 1902.....992

814-815. John Todhunter. b. 1839, d. 1916.....993-995

816-823. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840.....995-1002

824-826. Henry Austin Dobson. b. 1840.....1002-1004

827.     Henry Clarence Kendall. b. 1841, d. 1882.....1004-1006

828-830. Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy. b. 1844,
d. 1881.....1006-1010

831.     John Boyle O’Reilly. b. 1844, d. 1890.....1010

832-840. Robert Bridges. b. 1844.....1011-1018

841.     Andrew Lang. b. 1844, d. 1912.....1018

842-844. William Ernest Henley. b. 1849, d. 1903.....1019-1022

845.     Edmund Gosse. b. 1849.....1022-1023

846-848. Robert Louis Stevenson. b. 1850, d. 1894.....1023-1025

849.     T. W. Rolleston. b. 1857.....1025-1026

850-851. John Davidson. b. 1857, d. 1909.....1026-1028

852-854. William Watson. b. 1858.....1028-1031

855-856. Henry Charles Beeching. b. 1859.....1031-1033

857.     Bliss Carman. b. 1861.....1033-1034

858.     Douglas Hyde. b. 1861.....1034-1035

859.     Arthur Christopher Benson. b. 1862.....1035-1036

860.     Henry Newbolt. b. 1862.....1036-1037

861.     Gilbert Parker. b. 1862.....1038

862-864. William Butler Yeats. b. 1865.....1038-1039

865-867. Rudyard Kipling. b. 1865.....1040-1045

868-869. Richard Le Gallienne. b. 1866.....1045-1047

870-871. Laurence Binyon. b. 1869.....1047

872-873. ‘A. E.’ (George William Russell).....1048-1049

874.     T. Sturge Moore. b. 1870.....1049

875.     Francis Thompson, b. 1859, d. 1907.....1050-1052

876.     Henry Cust. b. 1861, d. 1917.....1053

877.     Katharine Tynan Hinkson. b. 1861.....1053-1054

878.     Frances Bannerman.....1054-1055

879-880. Alice Meynell. b. 1850.....1055-1056

881.     Dora Sigerson. d. 1918.....1056-1057

882.     Margaret L. Woods. b. 1856.....1057

883.     Anonymous.....1058




[Illustration]




_1._ _Cuckoo Song_

c. 1250

    Sumer is icumen in,
      Lhude sing cuccu!
    Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
      And springth the wude nu--
                    Sing cuccu!

    Awe bleteth after lomb,
      Lhouth after calve cu;
    Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
      Murie sing cuccu!

    Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
      Ne swike thu naver nu;
    Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
      Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!

     lhude] loud. awe] ewe. lhouth] loweth. sterteth] leaps. swike]
     cease.




ANONYMOUS


_2._ _Alison_

c. 1300

    Bytuene Mershe ant Averil
      When spray biginneth to spring,
    The lutel foul hath hire wyl
      On hyre kid to synge:
    Ich libbe in love-longinge
    For semlokest of alle thynge,
    He may me blisse bringe,
      Icham in hire bandoun.
    An hendy hap ichabbe y-hent,
    Ichot from hevene it is me sent,
    From alle wymmen my love is lent
      Ant lyht on Alisoun.

    On heu hire her is fayr ynoh,
      Hire browe broune, hire eye blake;
    With lossum chere he on me loh;
      With middel smal ant wel y-make;
    Bote he me wolle to hire take
    For to buen hire owen make,
    Long to lyven ichulle forsake
      Ant feye fallen adoun.
    An hendy hap, etc.

    Nihtes when I wende and wake,
      For-thi myn wonges waxeth won;

     on hyre lud] in her language. ich libbe] I live. semlokest]
     seemliest. he] she. bandoun] thraldom. hendy] gracious. y hent]
     seized, enjoyed. ichot] I wot. lyht] alighted. hire her] her hair.
     lossum] lovesome. loh] laughed. bote he] unless she. buen] be.
     make] mate. feye] like to die. nihtes] at night. wende] turn.
     for-thi] on that account. wonges waxeth won] cheeks grow wan.

    Levedi, al for thine sake
      Longinge is y-lent me on.
    In world his non so wyter mon
    That al hire bountè telle con;
    Hire swyre is whittore than the swon,
      Ant feyrest may in toune.
    An hendy hap, etc.

    Icham for wowyng al for-wake,
      Wery so water in wore;
    Lest eny reve me my make
      Ichabbe y-yerned yore.
      Betere is tholien whyle sore
      Then mournen evermore.
        Geynest under gore,
        Herkne to my roun--
    An hendy hap, etc.

     _2._ levedi] lady. y-lent me on] arrived to me. so wyter mon] so
     wise a man. swyre] neck. may] maid. for-wake] worn out with vigils.
     so water in wore] as water in a weir. reve] rob. y-yerned yore]
     long been distressed. tholien] to endure. geynest under gore]
     comeliest under woman’s apparel. roun] tale, lay.


_3._ _Spring-tide_

c. 1300

    Lenten ys come with love to toune,
    With blosmen ant with briddes roune,
      That al this blisse bryngeth;
    Dayes-eyes in this dales,
    Notes suete of nyhtegales,
      Vch foul song singeth;

     _3._ to toune] in its turn.

    The threstlecoc him threteth oo,
    Away is huere wynter wo,
      When woderove springeth;
    This foules singeth ferly fele,
    Ant wlyteth on huere winter wele,
      That al the wode ryngeth.

    The rose rayleth hire rode,
    The leves on the lyhte wode
      Waxen al with wille;
    The mone mandeth hire bleo,
    The lilie is lossom to seo,
      The fenyl ant the fille;
    Wowes this wilde drakes,
    Miles murgeth huere makes;
      Ase strem that striketh stille,
    Mody meneth; so doth mo
    (Ichot ycham on of tho)
      For loue that likes ille.

    The mone mandeth hire lyht,
    So doth the semly sonne bryht.
      When briddes singeth breme;
    Deowes donketh the dounes,
    Deores with huere derne rounes
      Domes forte deme;

     him threteth oo] is aye chiding them. huere] their. woderove]
     woodruff. ferly fele] marvellous many. wlyteth] whistle, or look.
     rayleth hire rode] clothes herself in red. mandeth hire bleo] sends
     forth her light. lossom to seo] lovesome to see. fille] thyme.
     wowes] woo. miles] males. murgeth] make merry. makes] mates.
     striketh] flows, trickles. mody meneth] the moody man makes moan.
     so doth mo] so do many. on of tho] one of them. breme] lustily.
     deowes] dews. donketh] make dank. deores] dears, lovers. huere
     derne rounes] their secret tales. domes forte deme] for to give
     (decide) their decisions.

    Wormes woweth under cloude,
    Wymmen waxeth wounder proude,
      So wel hit wol hem seme,
    Yef me shal wonte wille of on,
    This wunne weole y wole forgon
      Ant wyht in wode be fleme.

     _3._ cloude] clod. wunne weole] wealth of joy. y wole forgon] I
     will forgo. wyht] wight. fleme] banished.


_4._ _Blow, Northern Wind_

c. 1300

    Ichot a burde in boure bryht,
      That fully semly is on syht,
    Menskful maiden of myht;
      Feir ant fre to fonde;
    In al this wurhliche won
    A burde of blod ant of bon
    Never yete y nuste non
      Lussomore in londe.
        Blou northerne wynd!
        Send thou me my suetyng!
        Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!

    With lokkes lefliche ant longe,
    With frount ant face feir to fonge,
    With murthes monie mote heo monge,
      That brid so breme in boure.

     _4._ Ichot] I know. burde] maiden. menskful] worshipful. feir]
     fair. fonde] take, prove. wurhliche] noble. won] multitude. y
     nuste] I knew not. lussomore in londe] lovelier on earth. suetyng]
     sweetheart. lefliche] lovely. fonge] take between hands. murthes]
     mirths, joys. mote heo monge] may she mingle. brid] bird. breme]
     full of life.

    With lossom eye grete ant gode,
    With browen blysfol under hode,
    He that reste him on the Rode,
      That leflych lyf honoure.
        Blou northerne wynd, etc.

    Hire lure lumes liht,
    Ase a launterne a nyht,
    Hire bleo blykyeth so bryht,
      So feyr heo is ant fyn.
    A suetly swyre heo hath to holde.
    With armes shuldre ase mon wolde,
    Ant fingres feyre forte folde,
      God wolde hue were myn!
        Blou northerne wynd, etc.

    Heo is coral of godnesse,
    Heo is rubie of ryhtfulnesse,
    Heo is cristal of clannesse,
      Ant baner of bealtè.
    Heo is lilie of largesse,
    Heo is parvenke of prouesse,
    Heo is solsecle of suetnesse,
      Ant lady of lealtè.

    For hire love y carke ant care,
    For hire love y droupne ant dare,
    For hire love my blisse is bare
      Ant al ich waxe won,

     Rode] the Cross. lure] face. lumes] beams. bleo] colour. suetly
     swyre] darling neck. forte] for to. hue, heo] she. clannesse]
     cleanness, purity. parvenke] periwinkle. solsecle] sunflower. won]
     wan.

    For hire love in slep y slake,
    For hire love al nyht ich wake,
    For hire love mournynge y make
      More then eny mon.
        Blou northerne wynd!
        Send thou me my suetyng!
        Blou northerne wynd! blou, blou, blou!


_5._ _This World’s Joy_

c. 1300

    Wynter wakeneth al my care,
    Nou this leves waxeth bare;
    Ofte I sike ant mourne sare
      When hit cometh in my thoht
      Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht.

    Nou hit is, and nou hit nys,
    Al so hit ner nere, ywys;
    That moni mon seith, soth hit ys:
      Al goth bote Godes wille:
      Alle we shule deye, thah us like ylle.

    Al that gren me graueth grene,
    Nou hit faleweth albydene:
    Jesu, help that hit be sene
      Ant shild us from helle!
      For y not whider y shal, ne hou longe her duelle.

     _5._ this leves] these leaves. sike] sigh. nys] is not. also hit
     ner nere] as though it had never been. soth] sooth. bote] but,
     except. thah] though. faleweth] fadeth. albydene] altogether. y not
     whider] I know not whither. her duelle] here dwell.


_6._ _A Hymn to the Virgin_

c. 1300

    Of on that is so fayr and bright
            _Velut maris stella_,
    Brighter than the day is light,
            _Parens et puella_:
    Ic crie to the, thou see to me,
    Levedy, preye thi Sone for me,
            _Tam pia_,
    That ic mote come to thee
            _Maria_.

    Al this world was for-lore
            _Eva peccatrice_,
    Tyl our Lord was y-bore
            _De te genetrice_.
    With _ave_ it went away
    Thuster nyth and comz the day
            _Salutis_;
    The welle springeth ut of the,
            _Virtutis_.

    Levedy, flour of alle thing,
            _Rosa sine spina_,
    Thu bere Jhesu, hevene king,
            _Gratia divina_:
    Of alle thu ber’st the pris,
    Levedy, quene of paradys
            _Electa_:
    Mayde milde, moder es
            _Effecta_.

     on] one. levedy] lady. thuster] dark. pris] prize.


    _7._ _Of a rose, a lovely rose,_
      _Of a rose is al myn song._

c. 1350

    Lestenyt, lordynges, both elde and yinge,
    How this rose began to sprynge;
    Swych a rose to myn lykynge
        In al this word ne knowe I non.

    The Aungil came fro hevene tour,
    To grete Marye with gret honour,
    And seyde sche xuld bere the flour
        That xulde breke the fyndes bond.

    The flour sprong in heye Bedlem,
    That is bothe bryht and schen:
    The rose is Mary hevene qwyn,
        Out of here bosum the blosme sprong.

    The ferste braunche is ful of myht,
    That sprang on Cyrstemesse nyht,
    The sterre schon over Bedlem bryht
        That is bothe brod and long.

    The secunde braunche sprong to helle,
    The fendys power doun to felle:
    Therein myht non sowle dwelle;
        Blyssid be the time the rose sprong!

    The thredde braunche is good and swote,
    It sprang to hevene crop and rote,
    Therein to dwellyn and ben our bote;
        Every day it schewit in prystes hond.

     lestenyt] listen. word] world. xuld] should. schen] beautiful.
     hevene qwyn] heaven’s queen. bote] salvation.

    Prey we to here with gret honour,
    Che that bar the blyssid flowr,
    Che be our helpe and our socour
        And schyd us fro the fyndes bond.




ROBERT MANNYNG OF BRUNNE

1260-1340


_8._ _Praise of Women_

    No thyng ys to man so dere
    As wommanys love in gode manere.
    A gode womman is mannys blys,
    There her love right and stedfast ys.
    There ys no solas under hevene
    Of alle that a man may nevene
    That shulde a man so moche glew
    As a gode womman that loveth true.
    Ne derer is none in Goddis hurde
    Than a chaste womman with lovely worde.

     _8._ nevene] name. glew] gladden. hurde] flock.




JOHN BARBOUR

d. 1395


_9._ _Freedom_

    A! Fredome is a noble thing!
    Fredome mays man to haiff liking;
    Fredome all solace to man giffis,
    He levys at ese that frely levys!
    A noble hart may haiff nane ese,
    Na ellys nocht that may him plese,

     _9._ liking] liberty. na ellys nocht] nor aught else.

    Gyff fredome fail; for fre liking
    Is yarnyt our all othir thing.
    Na he that ay has levyt fre
    May nocht knaw weill the propyrtè,
    The angyr, na the wretchyt dome
    That is couplyt to foule thyrldome.
    Bot gyff he had assayit it,
    Than all perquer he suld it wyt;
    And suld think fredome mar to prise
    Than all the gold in warld that is.
    Thus contrar thingis evirmar
    Discoweryngis off the tothir ar.

     _9._ yarnyt] yearned for. perquer] thoroughly, by heart.




GEOFFREY CHAUCER

1340?-1400


_10._ _The Love Unfeigned_

    O YONGE fresshe folkes, he or she,
    In which that love up groweth with your age,
    Repeyreth hoom from worldly vanitee,
    And of your herte up-casteth the visage
    To thilke god that after his image
    Yow made, and thinketh al nis but a fayre
    This world, that passeth sone as floures fayre.

    And loveth him, the which that right for love
    Upon a cros, our soules for to beye,
    First starf, and roos, and sit in hevene a-bove;
    For he nil falsen no wight, dar I seye,
    That wol his herte al hoolly on him leye.
    And sin he best to love is, and most meke,
    What nedeth feyned loves for to seke?

     _10._ repeyreth] repair ye. starf] died.


_11._ _Balade_

    Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere;
    Ester, ley thou thy meknesse al a-doun;
    Hyd, Jonathas, al thy frendly manere;
    Penalopee, and Marcia Catoun,
    Mak of your wyfhod no comparisoun;
    Hyde ye your beautes, Isoude and Eleyne;
    My lady cometh, that al this may disteyne.

    Thy faire body, lat hit nat appere,
    Lavyne; and thou, Lucresse of Rome toun,
    And Polixene, that boghten love so dere,
    And Cleopatre, with al thy passioun,
    Hyde ye your trouthe of love and your renoun;
    And thou, Tisbe, that hast of love swich peyne;
    My lady cometh, that al this may disteyne.

    Herro, Dido, Laudomia, alle y-fere,
    And Phyllis, hanging for thy Demophoun,
    And Canace, espyed by thy chere,
    Ysiphile, betraysed with Jasoun,
    Maketh of your trouthe neyther boost ne soun;
    Nor Ypermistre or Adriane, ye tweyne;
    My lady cometh, that al this may distevne.

     _11._ disteyne] bedim. y-fere] together.


_12._ _Merciles Beaute_

A TRIPLE ROUNDEL


1. CAPTIVITY

    Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
    I may the beautè of hem not sustene,
    So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

    And but your word wol helen hastily
    My hertes wounde, whyl that hit is grene,
      Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
      I may the beautè of hem not sustene.

    Upon my trouthe I sey yow feithfully,
    That ye ben of my lyf and deeth the quene;
    For with my deeth the trouthe shal be sene.
      Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
      I may the beautè of hem not sustene,
      So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.


2. REJECTION

    So hath your beautè fro your herte chaced
    Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
    For Daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.

    Giltles my deeth thus han ye me purchaced;
    I sey yow sooth, me nedeth not to feyne;
      So hath your beautè fro your herte chaced
      Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne.

    Allas! that nature hath in yow compassed
    So greet beautè, that no man may atteyne
    To mercy, though he sterve for the peyne.
      So hath your beautè fro your herte chaced
      Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
      For Daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.


3. ESCAPE

    Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
    I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
    Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene.

     halt] holdeth.

    He may answere, and seye this or that;
    I do no fors, I speke right as I mene.
      Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
      I never thenk to ben in his prison lene.

    Love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,
    And he is strike out of my bokes clene
    For ever-mo; ther is non other mene.
      Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
      I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
      Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene.

     _12._ sclat] slate




THOMAS HOCCLEVE

1368-9?-1450?


_13._ _Lament for Chaucer_

    Allas! my worthi maister honorable,
    This landes verray tresor and richesse!
    Deth by thy deth hath harme irreparable
    Unto us doon: hir vengeable duresse
    Despoiled hath this land of the swetnesse
    Of rethorik; for unto Tullius
    Was never man so lyk amonges us.

    Also who was hier in philosophie
    To Aristotle in our tonge but thou?
    The steppes of Virgile in poesie
    Thou folwedist eeke, men wot wel ynow.
    That combre-worlde that the my maister slow--
    Wolde I slayn were!--Deth, was to hastyf
    To renne on thee and reve the thi lyf ...

     _13._ hier] heir. combre-worlde] encumberer of earth. slow] slew.

    She myghte han taried hir vengeance a while
    Til that sum man had egal to the be;
    Nay, lat be that! sche knew wel that this yle
    May never man forth brynge lyk to the,
    And hir office needes do mot she:
    God bad hir so, I truste as for the beste;
    O maister, maister, God thi soule reste!




JOHN LYDGATE

1370?-1450?


_14._ _Vox ultima Crucis_

    Tarye no lenger; toward thyn heritage
    Hast on thy weye, and be of ryght good chere.
    Go eche day onward on thy pylgrymage;
    Thynke howe short tyme thou hast abyden here.
    Thy place is bygged above the sterres clere,
    Noon erthly palys wrought in so statly wyse.
    Come on, my frend, my brother most entere!
    For the I offered my blood in sacryfice.

     _14._ bygged] built. palys] palace.




KING JAMES I OF SCOTLAND

1394-1437


_15._ _Spring Song of the Birds_

    Worschippe ye that loveris bene this May,
    For of your blisse the Kalendis are begonne,
    And sing with us, Away, Winter, away!
      Cum, Somer, cum, the suete sesoùn and sonne!
      Awake for schame! that have your hevynnis wonne,
        And amorously lift up your hedis all,
        Thank Lufe that list you to his merci call!

     _15._ suete] sweet. Lufe] Love.




ROBERT HENRYSON

1425-1500


_16._ _Robin and Makyne_

    Robin sat on gude green hill,
      Kepand a flock of fe:
    Mirry Makyne said him till
      ‘Robin, thou rew on me:
    I haif thee luvit, loud and still,
      Thir yeiris twa or thre;
    My dule in dern bot gif thou dill,
      Doutless but dreid I de.’

    Robin answerit ‘By the Rude
      Na thing of luve I knaw,
    But keipis my scheip undir yon wud:
      Lo, quhair they raik on raw.
    Quhat has marrit thee in thy mude,
      Makyne, to me thou shaw;
    Or quhat is luve, or to be lude?
      Fain wad I leir that law.’

    ‘At luvis lair gif thou will leir
      Tak thair ane A B C;
    Be heynd, courtass, and fair of feir,
      Wyse, hardy, and free:
    So that no danger do thee deir
      Quhat dule in dern thou dre;
    Preiss thee with pain at all poweir
      Be patient and previe.’

     kepand] keeping. fe] sheep, cattle. him till] to him. dule in dern]
     sorrow in secret. dill] soothe. but dreid] without dread, i. e.
     there is no fear or doubt. raik on raw] range in row. lude] loved.
     leir] learn. lair] lore. heynd] gentle. feir] demeanour. deir]
     daunt. dre] endure. preiss] endeavour.

    Robin answerit hir agane,
      ‘I wat nocht quhat is lufe;
    But I haif mervel in certaine
      Quhat makis thee this wanrufe:
    The weddir is fair, and I am fain;
      My scheip gois haill aboif;
    And we wald pley us in this plane,
      They wald us baith reproif.’

    ‘Robin, tak tent unto my tale,
      And wirk all as I reid,
    And thou sall haif my heart all haill,
      Eik and my maiden-heid:
    Sen God sendis bute for baill,
      And for murnyng remeid,
    In dern with thee bot gif I daill
      Dowtles I am bot deid.’

    ‘Makyne, to-morn this ilka tyde
      And ye will meit me heir,
    Peraventure my scheip may gang besyde,
      Quhyle we haif liggit full neir;
    But mawgre haif I, and I byde,
      Fra they begin to steir;
    Quhat lyis on heart I will nocht hyd;
      Makyn, then mak gude cheir.’

    ‘Robin, thou reivis me roiff and rest;
      I luve bot thee allane.’
    ‘Makyne, adieu! the sone gois west,
      The day is neir-hand gane.’

     wanrufe] unrest. haill] healthy, whole. aboif] above, up yonder.
     and] if. tak tent] give heed. reid] advise. bute for baill] remedy
     for hurt. bot gif] but if, unless. daill] deal. mawgre haif I] I am
     uneasy. reivis] robbest. roiff] quiet.

    ‘Robin, in dule I am so drest
      That luve will be my bane.’
    ‘Ga luve, Makyne, quhair-evir thow list,
      For lemman I luve nane.’

    ‘Robin, I stand in sic a styll,
      I sicht and that full sair.’
    ‘Makyne, I haif been here this quhyle;
      At hame God gif I wair.’
    ‘My huny, Robin, talk ane quhyll,
      Gif thow will do na mair.’
    ‘Makyn, sum uthir man begyle,
      For hamewart I will fair.’

    Robin on his wayis went
      As light as leif of tre;
    Makyne murnit in hir intent,
      And trowd him nevir to se.
    Robin brayd attour the bent:
      Then Makyne cryit on hie,
    ‘Now may thow sing, for I am schent!
      Quhat alis lufe at me?’

    Makyne went hame withowttin fail,
      Full wery eftir cowth weip;
    Then Robin in a ful fair daill
      Assemblit all his scheip.
    Be that sum part of Makynis aill
      Out-throw his hairt cowd creip;
    He fallowit hir fast thair till assaill,
      And till her tuke gude keip.

     drest] beset. lemman] mistress. sicht] sigh. in hir intent] in her
     inward thought. brayd] strode. bent] coarse grass. schent]
     destroyed. alis] ails. be that] by the time that. till] to. tuke
     keip] paid attention.

    ‘Abyd, abyd, thow fair Makyne,
      A word for ony thing;
    For all my luve, it sall be thyne,
      Withowttin departing.
    All haill thy hairt for till haif myne
      Is all my cuvating;
    My scheip to-morn, quhyle houris nyne,
      Will neid of no keping.’

    ‘Robin, thow hes hard soung and say,
      In gestis and storeis auld,
    The man that will nocht quhen he may
      Sall haif nocht quhen he wald.
    I pray to Jesu every day,
      Mot eik thair cairis cauld
    That first preissis with thee to play
      Be firth, forrest, or fauld.’

    ‘Makyne, the nicht is soft and dry,
      The weddir is warme and fair,
    And the grene woid rycht neir us by
      To walk attour all quhair:
    Thair ma na janglour us espy,
      That is to lufe contrair;
    Thairin, Makyne, baith ye and I,
      Unsene we ma repair.’

    ‘Robin, that warld is all away,
      And quyt brocht till ane end:
    And nevir agane thereto, perfay,
      Sall it be as thow wend;

     hard] heard. gestis] romances. mot eik] may add to. be] by.
     janglour] talebearer. wend] weened.

    For of my pane thow maid it play;
      And all in vane I spend:
    As thow hes done, sa sall I say,
      “Murne on, I think to mend.”’

    ‘Makyne, the howp of all my heill,
      My hairt on thee is sett;
    And evirmair to thee be leill
      Quhill I may leif but lett;
    Never to faill as utheris feill,
      Quhat grace that evir I gett.’
    ‘Robin, with thee I will nocht deill;
      Adieu! for thus we mett.’

    Makyne went hame blyth anneuche
      Attour the holttis hair;
    Robin murnit, and Makyne leuche;
      Scho sang, he sichit sair:
    And so left him baith wo and wreuch,
      In dolour and in cair,
    Kepand his hird under a huche
      Amangis the holttis hair.

     _16._ howp] hope. but lett] without hindrance. anneuche] enough.
     holttis hair] grey woodlands. leuche] laughed. wreuch] peevish.
     huche] heuch, cliff.


_17._ _The Bludy Serk_

    This hinder yeir I hard be tald
      Thair was a worthy King;
    Dukis, Erlis, and Barronis bald,
      He had at his bidding.

     _17._ hinder yeir] last year.

    The Lord was ancean and ald,
      And sexty yeiris cowth ring;
    He had a dochter fair to fald,
      A lusty Lady ying.

    Off all fairheid scho bur the flour,
      And eik hir faderis air;
    Off lusty laitis and he honour,
      Meik bot and debonair:
    Scho wynnit in a bigly bour,
      On fold wes nane so fair,
    Princis luvit hir paramour
      In cuntreis our allquhair.

    Thair dwelt a lyt besyde the King
      A foull Gyand of ane;
    Stollin he has the Lady ying,
      Away with hir is gane,
    And kest her in his dungering
      Quhair licht scho micht se nane;
    Hungir and cauld and grit thristing
      Scho fand into hir waine.

    He wes the laithliest on to luk
      That on the grund mycht gang:
    His nailis wes lyk ane hellis cruk,
      Thairwith fyve quarteris lang;

     ring] reign. fald] enfold. ying] young. fairheid] beauty. air]
     heir. laitis] manners. bot and] and also. scho wynnit] she dwelt.
     bigly] well-built. fold] earth. paramour] lovingly. our allquhair]
     all the world over. a lyt besyde] a little, (i. e. close) beside.
     of ane] as any. kest] cast. dungering] dungeon. into hir waine] in
     her lodging. hellis cruk] hell-claw.

    Thair wes nane that he ourtuk,
      In rycht or yit in wrang,
    Bot all in schondir he thame schuk,
      The Gyand wes so strang.

    He held the Lady day and nycht
      Within his deip dungeoun,
    He wald nocht gif of hir a sicht
      For gold nor yit ransoun--
    Bot gif the King mycht get a knycht,
      To fecht with his persoun,
    To fecht with him beth day and nycht,
      Quhill ane wer dungin doun.

    The King gart seik baith fer and neir,
      Beth be se and land,
    Off ony knycht gif he mycht heir
      Wald fecht with that Gyand:
    A worthy Prince, that had no peir,
      Hes tane the deid on hand
    For the luve of the Lady cleir,
      And held full trew cunnand.

    That Prince come prowdly to the toun
      Of that Gyand to heir,
    And fawcht with him, his awin persoun,
      And tuke him presoneir,
    And kest him in his awin dungeoun
      Allane withouten feir,
    With hungir, cauld, and confusioun,
      As full weill worthy weir.

     quhill] until. dungin doun] beaten down. his awin persoun] himself.
     withouten feir] without companion.

    Syne brak the bour, had hame the bricht
      Unto her fadir fre.
    Sa evill wondit wes the Knycht
      That he behuvit to de;
    Unlusum was his likame dicht,
      His sark was all bludy;
    In all the world was thair a wicht
      So peteouss for to se?

    The Lady murnyt and maid grit mane,
      With all her mekill mycht--
    ‘I luvit nevir lufe bot ane,
      That dulfully now is dicht;
    God sen my lyfe were fra me tane
      Or I had seen yone sicht,
    Or ellis in begging evir to gane
      Furth with yone curtass knycht.’

    He said ‘Fair lady, now mone I
      De, trestly ye me trow;
    Take ye my serk that is bludy,
      And hing it forrow yow;
    First think on it, and syne on me,
      Quhen men cumis yow to wow.’
    The Lady said ‘Be Mary fre,
      Thairto I mak a vow.’

    Quhen that scho lukit to the sark
      Scho thocht on the persoun,
    And prayit for him with all hir hart
      That lowsit hir of bandoun,

     the bricht] the fair one. likame] body. lowsit hir of. bandoun]
     loosed her from thraldom.

    Quhair scho was wont to sit full merk
      Into that deip dungeoun;
    And evir quhill scho wes in quert,
      That was hir a lessoun.

    Sa weill the Lady luvit the Knycht
      That no man wald scho tak:
    Sa suld we do our God of micht
      That did all for us mak;
    Quhilk fullily to deid was dicht,
      For sinfull manis sak,
    Sa suld we do beth day and nycht,
      With prayaris to him mak.

    This King is lyk the Trinitie,
      Baith in hevin and heir;
    The manis saule to the Lady,
      The Gyand to Lucefeir,
    The Knycht to Chryst, that deit on tre
      And coft our synnis deir;
    The pit to Hele with panis fell,
      The Syn to the woweir.

    The Lady was wowd, but scho said nay
      With men that wald hir wed;
    Sa suld we wryth all sin away
      That in our breist is bred.
    I pray to Jesu Chryst verray,
      For ws his blud that bled,
    To be our help on domisday
      Quhair lawis ar straitly led.

     quert] prison. coft] bought. straitly led] strictly carried out.

    The saule is Godis dochtir deir,
      And eik his handewerk,
    That was betrayit with Lucefeir,
      Quha sittis in hell full merk:
    Borrowit with Chrystis angell cleir,
      Hend men, will ye nocht herk?
    And for his lufe that bocht us deir
      Think on the BLUDY SERK!

     _17._ hend] gentle.




WILLIAM DUNBAR

1465-1520?


_18._ _To a Lady_

    Sweet rois of vertew and of gentilness,
    Delytsum lily of everie lustynes,
        Richest in bontie and in bewtie clear,
        And everie vertew that is wenit dear,
    Except onlie that ye are mercyless.

    Into your garth this day I did persew;
    There saw I flowris that fresche were of hew;
        Baith quhyte and reid most lusty were to seyne,
        And halesome herbis upon stalkis greene;
    Yet leaf nor flowr find could I nane of rew.

    I doubt that Merche, with his cauld blastis keyne,
    Has slain this gentil herb, that I of mene;
        Quhois piteous death dois to my heart sic paine
        That I would make to plant his root againe,--
    So confortand his levis unto me bene.

     _18._ rois] rose. wenit] weened, esteemed. garth] garden-close. to
     seyne] to see. that I of mene] that I complain of, mourn for.


_19._ _In Honour of the City of London_

    London, thou art of townes _A per se_.
      Soveraign of cities, seemliest in sight,
    Of high renoun, riches and royaltie;
      Of lordis, barons, and many a goodly knyght;
      Of most delectable lusty ladies bright;
    Of famous prelatis, in habitis clericall;
      Of merchauntis full of substaunce and of myght:
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.

    Gladdith anon, thou lusty Troynovaunt,
      Citie that some tyme cleped was New Troy;
    In all the erth, imperiall as thou stant,
      Pryncesse of townes, of pleasure and of joy,
      A richer restith under no Christen roy;
    For manly power, with craftis naturall,
      Fourmeth none fairer sith the flode of Noy:
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.

    Gemme of all joy, jasper of jocunditie,
      Most myghty carbuncle of vertue and valour;
    Strong Troy in vigour and in strenuytie;
      Of royall cities rose and geraflour;
    Empress of townes, exalt in honour;
    In beawtie beryng the crone imperiall;
      Swete paradise precelling in pleasure;
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.

    Above all ryvers thy Ryver hath renowne,
      Whose beryall stremys, pleasaunt and preclare,
    Under thy lusty wallys renneth down,
      Where many a swan doth swymme with wyngis fair;

     gladdith] rejoice. Troynovaunt] Troja nova or Trinovantum.
     fourmeth] appeareth. geraflour] gillyflower.

      Where many a barge doth saile and row with are;
    Where many a ship doth rest with top-royall.
      O, towne of townes! patrone and not compare,
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.

    Upon thy lusty Brigge of pylers white
      Been merchauntis full royall to behold;
    Upon thy stretis goeth many a semely knyght
      In velvet gownes and in cheynes of gold.
      By Julyus Cesar thy Tour founded of old
    May be the hous of Mars victoryall,
      Whose artillary with tonge may not be told:
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.

    Strong be thy wallis that about thee standis;
      Wise be the people that within thee dwellis;
    Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis;
      Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis;
      Rich be thy merchauntis in substaunce that excellis;
    Fair be their wives, right lovesom, white and small;
      Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis:
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.

    Thy famous Maire, by pryncely governaunce,
      With sword of justice thee ruleth prudently.
    No Lord of Parys, Venyce, or Floraunce
      In dignitye or honour goeth to hym nigh.
      He is exampler, loode-ster, and guye;
    Principall patrone and rose orygynalle,
      Above all Maires as maister most worthy:
    London, thou art the flour of Cities all.

     are] oar. small] slender. kellis] hoods, head-dresses. guye] guide.


_20._ _On the Nativity of Christ_

    _Rorate coeli desuper_!
      Hevins, distil your balmy schouris!
    For now is risen the bricht day-ster,
      Fro the rose Mary, flour of flouris:
      The cleir Sone, quhom no cloud devouris,
    Surmounting Phebus in the Est,
      Is cumin of his hevinly touris:
        _Et nobis Puer natus est_.

    Archangellis, angellis, and dompnationis,
      Tronis, potestatis, and marteiris seir,
    And all ye hevinly operationis,
      Ster, planeit, firmament, and spheir,
      Fire, erd, air, and water cleir,
    To Him gife loving, most and lest,
      That come in to so meik maneir;
        _Et nobis Puer natus est_.

    Synnaris be glad, and penance do,
      And thank your Maker hairtfully;
    For he that ye micht nocht come to
      To you is cumin full humbly
      Your soulis with his blood to buy
    And loose you of the fiendis arrest--
      And only of his own mercy;
        _Pro nobis Puer natus est_.

    All clergy do to him inclyne,
      And bow unto that bairn benyng,
    And do your observance divyne
      To him that is of kingis King:

     schouris] showers. cumin] come, entered. seir] various. erd] earth.
     lest] least. synnaris] sinners. benyng] benign.

      Encense his altar, read and sing
    In holy kirk, with mind degest,
      Him honouring attour all thing
        _Qui nobis Puer natus est_.

    Celestial foulis in the air,
      Sing with your nottis upon hicht,
    In firthis and in forrestis fair
      Be myrthful now at all your mycht;
      For passit is your dully nicht,
    Aurora has the cloudis perst,
      The Sone is risen with glaidsum licht,
        _Et nobis Puer natus est_.

    Now spring up flouris fra the rute,
      Revert you upward naturaly,
    In honour of the blissit frute
      That raiss up fro the rose Mary;
      Lay out your levis lustily,
    Fro deid take life now at the lest
      In wirschip of that Prince worthy
        _Qui nobis Puer natus est_.

    Sing, hevin imperial, most of hicht!
      Regions of air mak armony!
    All fish in flud and fowl of flicht
      Be mirthful and mak melody!
      All Gloria in excelsis cry!
    Heaven, erd, se, man, bird, and best,--
      He that is crownit abone the sky
        _Pro nobis Puer natus est_!

     attour] over, above. perst] pierced. raiss] rose. best] beast.


_21._ _Lament for the Makers_

    I that in heill was and gladnèss
    Am trublit now with great sickness
    And feblit with infirmitie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Our plesance here is all vain glory,
    This fals world is but transitory,
    The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    The state of man does change and vary,
    Now sound, now sick, now blyth, now sary,
    Now dansand mirry, now like to die:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    No state in Erd here standis sicker;
    As with the wynd wavis the wicker
    So wannis this world’s vanitie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Unto the Death gois all Estatis,
    Princis, Prelatis, and Potestatis,
    Baith rich and poor of all degree:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    He takis the knichtis in to the field
    Enarmit under helm and scheild;
    Victor he is at all mellie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

     heill] health. bruckle] brittle, feeble. slee] sly. dansand]
     dancing. sicker] sure. wicker] willow. wannis] wanes. mellie]
     mellay.

    That strong unmerciful tyrand
    Takis, on the motheris breast sowkand,
    The babe full of benignitie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    He takis the campion in the stour,
    The captain closit in the tour,
    The lady in bour full of bewtie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    He spairis no lord for his piscence,
    Na clerk for his intelligence;
    His awful straik may no man flee:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Art-magicianis and astrologgis,
    Rethoris, logicianis, and theologgis,
    Them helpis no conclusionis slee:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    In medecine the most practicianis,
    Leechis, surrigianis, and physicianis,
    Themself from Death may not supplee:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    I see that makaris amang the lave
    Playis here their padyanis, syne gois to grave;
    Sparit is nocht their facultie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    He has done petuously devour
    The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour,
    The Monk of Bury, and Gower, all three:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me._

     sowkand] sucking. campion] champion. stour] fight. piscence]
     puissance. straik] stroke. supplee] save. makaris] poets. the lave]
     the leave, the rest. padyanis] pageants.

    The good Sir Hew of Eglintoun,
    Ettrick, Heriot, and Wintoun,
    He has tane out of this cuntrie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    That scorpion fell has done infeck
    Maister John Clerk, and James Afflek,
    Fra ballat-making and tragedie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Holland and Barbour he has berevit;
    Alas! that he not with us levit
    Sir Mungo Lockart of the Lee:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Clerk of Tranent eke he has tane,
    That made the anteris of Gawaine;
    Sir Gilbert Hay endit has he:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    He has Blind Harry and Sandy Traill
    Slain with his schour of mortal hail,
    Quhilk Patrick Johnstoun might nought flee:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    He has reft Merseir his endite,
    That did in luve so lively write,
    So short, so quick, of sentence hie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    He has tane Rowll of Aberdene,
    And gentill Rowll of Corstorphine;
    Two better fallowis did no man see:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

     anteris] adventures. schour] shower. endite] inditing. fallowis]
     fellows.

    In Dunfermline he has tane Broun
    With Maister Robert Henrysoun;
    Sir John the Ross enbrast has he:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    And he has now tane, last of a,
    Good gentil Stobo and Quintin Shaw,
    Of quhom all wichtis hes pitie:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Good Maister Walter Kennedy
    In point of Death lies verily;
    Great ruth it were that so suld be:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Sen he has all my brether tane,
    He will naught let me live alane;
    Of force I man his next prey be:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

    Since for the Death remeid is none,
    Best is that we for Death dispone,
    After our death that live may we:--
        _Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

     _21._ wichtis] wights, persons. man] must. dispone] make
     disposition.




ANONYMOUS

15th Cent.


_22._ _May in the Green-Wood_

    In somer when the shawes be sheyne,
      And leves be large and long,
    Hit is full merry in feyre foreste
      To here the foulys song.

     _22._ sheyne] bright.

    To se the dere draw to the dale
      And leve the hilles hee,
    And shadow him in the leves grene
      Under the green-wode tree.

    Hit befell on Whitsontide
      Early in a May mornyng,
    The Sonne up faire can shyne,
      And the briddis mery can syng.

    ‘This is a mery mornyng,’ said Litulle Johne,
      ‘Be Hym that dyed on tre;
    A more mery man than I am one
      Lyves not in Christiantè.

    ‘Pluk up thi hert, my dere mayster,’
      Litulle Johne can say,
    ‘And thynk hit is a fulle fayre tyme
      In a mornynge of May.’


_23._ _Carol_

15th Cent.

    I sing of a maiden
      That is makeles;
    King of all kings
      To her son she ches.

    He came al so still
      There his mother was,
    As dew in April
      That falleth on the grass.

     _23._ makeles] matchless. ches] chose.

    He came al so still
      To his mother’s bour,
    As dew in April
      That falleth on the flour.

    He came al so still
      There his mother lay,
    As dew in April
      That falleth on the spray.

    Mother and maiden
      Was never none but she;
    Well may such a lady
      Goddes mother be.


_24._ _Quia Amore Langueo_

15th Cent. (?)

    In a valley of this restles mind
    I sought in mountain and in mead,
    Trusting a true love for to find.
    Upon an hill then took I heed;
    A voice I heard (and near I yede)
    In great dolour complaining tho:
    See, dear soul, how my sides bleed
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    Upon this hill I found a tree,
    Under a tree a man sitting;
    From head to foot wounded was he;
    His hearte blood I saw bleeding:
    A seemly man to be a king,
    A gracious face to look unto.
    I askèd why he had paining;
      [He said,] _Quia amore langueo_.

     _24._ yede] went.

    I am true love that false was never;
    My sister, man’s soul, I loved her thus.
    Because we would in no wise dissever
    I left my kingdom glorious.
    I purveyed her a palace full precious;
    She fled, I followed, I loved her so
    That I suffered this pain piteous
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    My fair love and my spouse bright!
    I saved her from beating, and she hath me bet;
    I clothed her in grace and heavenly light;
    This bloody shirt she hath on me set;
    For longing of love yet would I not let;
    Sweete strokes are these: lo!
    I have loved her ever as I her het
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    I crowned her with bliss and she me with thorn;
    I led her to chamber and she me to die;
    I brought her to worship and she me to scorn;
    I did her reverence and she me villany.
    To love that loveth is no maistry;
    Her hate made never my love her foe:
    Ask me then no question why--
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    Look unto mine handes, man!
    These gloves were given me when I her sought;
    They be not white, but red and wan;
    Embroidered with blood my spouse them brought.
    They will not off; I loose hem nought:

     het] promised.

    I woo her with hem wherever she go.
    These hands for her so friendly fought
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    Marvel not, man, though I sit still.
    See, love hath shod me wonder strait:
    Buckled my feet, as was her will,
    With sharpe nails (well thou may’st wait!)
    In my love was never desait;
    All my membres I have opened her to;
    My body I made her herte’s bait
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    In my side I have made her nest;
    Look in, how weet a wound is here!
    This is her chamber, here shall she rest,
    That she and I may sleep in fere.
    Here may she wash, if any filth were;
    Here is seat for all her woe;
    Come when she will, she shall have cheer
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    I will abide till she be ready,
    I will her sue if she say nay;
    If she be retchless I will be greedy,
    If she be dangerous I will her pray;
    If she weep, then bide I ne may:
    Mine arms ben spread to clip her me to.
    Cry once, I come: now, soul, assay
       _Quia amore langueo_.

    Fair love, let us go play:
    Apples ben ripe in my gardayne.

     bait] resting-place. weet] wet. in fere] together.

    I shall thee clothe in a new array,
    Thy meat shall be milk, honey and wine.
    Fair love, let us go dine:
    Thy sustenance is in my crippe, lo!
    Tarry thou not, my fair spouse mine,
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    If thou be foul, I shall thee make clean;
    If thou be sick, I shall thee heal;
    If thou mourn ought, I shall thee mene;
    Why wilt thou not, fair love, with me deal?
    Foundest thou ever love so leal?
    What wilt thou, soul, that I shall do?
    I may not unkindly thee appeal
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    What shall I do now with my spouse
    But abide her of my gentleness,
    Till that she look out of her house
    Of fleshly affection? love mine she is;
    Her bed is made, her bolster is bliss,
    Her chamber is chosen; is there none mo.
    Look out on me at the window of kindeness
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    My love is in her chamber: hold your peace!
    Make ye no noise, but let her sleep.
    My babe I would not were in disease,
    I may not hear my dear child weep.
    With my pap I shall her keep;
    Ne marvel ye not though I tend her to:
    This wound in my side had ne’er be so deep
      But _Quia amore langueo_.

     crippe] scrip. mene] care for.

    Long thou for love never so high,
    My love is more than thine may be.
    Thou weepest, thou gladdest, I sit thee by:
    Yet wouldst thou once, love, look unto me!
    Should I always feede thee
    With children meat? Nay, love, not so!
    I will prove thy love with adversitè
      _Quia amore langueo_.

    Wax not weary, mine own wife!
    What mede is aye to live in comfort?
    In tribulation I reign more rife
    Ofter times than in disport.
    In weal and in woe I am aye to support:
    Mine own wife, go not me fro!
    Thy mede is marked, when thou art mort:
      _Quia amore langueo_.


_25._ _The Nut-Brown Maid_

15th Cent.

    _He._ _Be it right or wrong, these men among_
             _On women do complain;_
           _Affirming this, how that it is_
             _A labour spent in vain_
           _To love them wele; for never a dele_
             _They love a man again:_
           _For let a man do what he can_
             _Their favour to attain,_
           _Yet if a new to them pursue,_
             _Their first true lover than_
           _Laboureth for naught; for from her thought_
             _He is a banished man._

     _25._ never a dele] never a bit. than] then.

    _She._ _I say not nay, but that all day_
             _It is both written and said_
           _That woman’s faith is, as who saith,_
             _All utterly decayd:_
           _But nevertheless, right good witnèss_
             _In this case might be laid_
           _That they love true and continue:_
             _Record the Nut-brown Maid,_
           _Which, when her love came her to prove,_
             _To her to make his moan,_
           _Would not depart; for in her heart_
             _She loved but him alone._

    _He._ _Then between us let us discuss_
             _What was all the manere_
           _Between them two: we will also_
             _Tell all the pain in fere_
           _That she was in. Now I begin,_
             _So that ye me answere:_
           _Wherefore all ye that present be,_
             _I pray you, give an ear._
           _I am the Knight. I come by night,_
             _As secret as I can,_
           _Saying_, Alas! thus standeth the case,
             I am a banished man.

    _She._ _And I your will for to fulfil_
             _In this will not refuse;_
           _Trusting to show, in wordes few,_
             _That men have an ill use--_
           _To their own shame--women to blame,_
             _And causeless them accuse._

     in fere] in company together.

           _Therefore to you I answer now,_
             _All women to excuse--_
           Mine own heart dear, with you what cheer?
             I pray you, tell anone;
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ It standeth so: a deed is do
             Whereof great harm shall grow:
           My destiny is for to die
             A shameful death, I trow;
           Or else to flee. The t’ one must be.
             None other way I know
           But to withdraw as an outlàw,
             And take me to my bow.
           Wherefore adieu, mine own heart true!
             None other rede I can:
           For I must to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ O Lord, what is this worldis bliss,
             That changeth as the moon!
           My summer’s day in lusty May
             Is darked before the noon.
           I hear you say, farewell: Nay, nay,
             We dèpart not so soon.
           Why say ye so? whither will ye go?
             Alas! what have ye done?
           All my welfàre to sorrow and care
             Should change, if ye were gone:
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

     rede I can] counsel I know.

    _He._ I can believe it shall you grieve,
             And somewhat you distrain;
           But afterward, your paines hard
             Within a day or twain
           Shall soon aslake; and ye shall take
             Comfort to you again.
           Why should ye ought? for, to make thought,
             Your labour were in vain.
           And thus I do; and pray you to,
             As hartely as I can:
           For I must to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ Now, sith that ye have showed to me
             The secret of your mind,
           I shall be plain to you again,
             Like as ye shall me find.
           Sith it is so that ye will go,
             I will not live behind.
           Shall never be said the Nut-brown Maid
             Was to her love unkind.
           Make you readý, for so am I,
             Although it were anone:
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ Yet I you rede to take good heed
             What men will think and say:
           Of young, of old, it shall be told
             That ye be gone away
           Your wanton will for to fulfil,
             In green-wood you to play;
           And that ye might for your delight
             No longer make delay
           Rather than ye should thus for me
             Be called an ill womàn
           Yet would I to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ Though it be sung of old and young
             That I should be to blame,
           Theirs be the charge that speak so large
             In hurting of my name:
           For I will prove that faithful love
             It is devoid of shame;
           In your distress and heaviness
             To part with you the same:
           And sure all tho that do not so
             True lovers are they none:
           For in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ I counsel you, Remember how
             It is no maiden’s law
           Nothing to doubt, but to run out
             To wood with an outlàw.
           For ye must there in your hand bear
             A bow readý to draw;
           And as a thief thus must you live
             Ever in dread and awe;
           Whereby to you great harm might grow:
             Yet had I liever than
           That I had to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

     part with] share with. tho] those.

    _She._ I think not nay but as ye say;
             It is no maiden’s lore;
           But love may make me for your sake,
             As I have said before,
           To come on foot, to hunt and shoot,
             To get us meat and store;
           For so that I your company
             May have, I ask no more.
           From which to part it maketh my heart
             As cold as any stone;
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ For an outlàw this is the law,
             That men him take and bind:
           Without pitie, hangèd to be,
             And waver with the wind.
           If I had need (as God forbede!)
             What socours could ye find?
           Forsooth I trow, you and your bow
             For fear would draw behind.
           And no mervail; for little avail
             Were in your counsel than:
           Wherefore I’ll to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ Right well know ye that women be
             But feeble for to fight;
           No womanhede it is, indeed,
             To be bold as a knight:
           Yet in such fear if that ye were
             With enemies day and night,
           I would withstand, with bow in hand,
             To grieve them as I might,
           And you to save; as women have
             From death men many one:
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ Yet take good hede; for ever I drede
             That ye could not sustain
           The thorny ways, the deep vallèys,
             The snow, the frost, the rain,
           The cold, the heat; for dry or wete,
             We must lodge on the plain;
           And, us above, no other roof
             But a brake bush or twain:
           Which soon should grieve you, I believe;
             And ye would gladly than
           That I had to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ Sith I have here been partynere
             With you of joy and bliss,
           I must alsò part of your woe
             Endure, as reason is:
           Yet I am sure of one pleasùre,
             And shortly it is this--
           That where ye be, me seemeth, pardé,
             I could not fare amiss.
           Without more speech I you beseech
             That we were shortly gone;
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.


    _He._ If ye go thyder, ye must consider,
             When ye have lust to dine,
           There shall no meat be for to gete,
             Nether bere, ale, ne wine,
           Ne shetès clean, to lie between,
             Made of thread and twine;
           None other house, but leaves and boughs,
             To cover your head and mine.
           Lo, mine heart sweet, this ill diète
             Should make you pale and wan:
           Wherefore I’ll to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ Among the wild deer such an archère,
             As men say that ye be,
           Ne may not fail of good vitayle
             Where is so great plentè:
           And water clear of the rivere
             Shall be full sweet to me;
           With which in hele I shall right wele
             Endure, as ye shall see;
           And, or we go, a bed or two
             I can provide anone;
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ Lo yet, before, ye must do more,
             If ye will go with me:
           As, cut your hair up by your ear,
             Your kirtle by the knee;
           With bow in hand for to withstand
             Your enemies, if need be:

     hele] health.

           And this same night, before daylight,
             To woodward will I flee.
           If that ye will all this fulfil,
             Do it shortly as ye can:
           Else will I to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ I shall as now do more for you
             Than ’longeth to womanhede;
           To short my hair, a bow to bear,
             To shoot in time of need.
           O my sweet mother! before all other
             For you I have most drede!
           But now, adieu! I must ensue
             Where fortune doth me lead.
           All this make ye: Now let us flee;
             The day cometh fast upon:
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ Nay, nay, not so; ye shall not go,
             And I shall tell you why--
           Your appetite is to be light
             Of love, I well espy:
           For, right as ye have said to me,
             In likewise hardily
           Ye would answere whosoever it were,
             In way of companý:
           It is said of old, Soon hot, soon cold;
             And so is a womàn:
           Wherefore I to the wood will go,
             Alone, a banished man.


    _She._ If ye take heed, it is no need
             Such words to say to me;
           For oft ye prayed, and long assayed,
             Or I loved you, pardè:
           And though that I of ancestry
             A baron’s daughter be,
           Yet have you proved how I you loved,
             A squire of low degree;
           And ever shall, whatso befall
             To die therefore anone;
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ A baron’s child to be beguiled,
             It were a cursèd deed!
           To be felàw with an outlaw--
             Almighty God forbede!
           Yet better were the poor squyere
             Alone to forest yede
           Than ye shall say another day
             That by my cursèd rede
           Ye were betrayed. Wherefore, good maid,
             The best rede that I can,
           Is, that I to the green-wood go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ Whatever befall, I never shall
             Of this thing be upbraid:
           But if ye go, and leave me so,
             Then have ye me betrayed.
           Remember you wele, how that ye dele;
             For if ye, as ye said,

     yede] went.

           Be so unkind to leave behind
             Your love, the Nut-brown Maid,
           Trust me trulý that I shall die
             Soon after ye be gone:
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ If that ye went, ye should repent;
             For in the forest now
           I have purveyed me of a maid
             Whom I love more than you:
           Another more fair than ever ye were
             I dare it well avow;
           And of you both each should be wroth
             With other, as I trow:
           It were mine ease to live in peace;
             So will I, if I can:
           Wherefore I to the wood will go,
             Alone, a banished man.

    _She._ Though in the wood I understood
             Ye had a paramour,
           All this may nought remove my thought,
             But that I will be your’:
           And she shall find me soft and kind
             And courteis every hour;
           Glad to fulfil all that she will
             Command me, to my power:
           For had ye, lo, an hundred mo,
             Yet would I be that one:
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.


    _He._ Mine own dear love, I see the prove
             That ye be kind and true;
           Of maid, of wife, in all my life,
             The best that ever I knew.
           Be merry and glad; be no more sad;
             The case is changèd new;
           For it were ruth that for your truth
             Ye should have cause to rue.
           Be not dismayed, whatsoever I said
             To you when I began:
           I will not to the green-wood go;
             I am no banished man.

    _She._ These tidings be more glad to me
             Than to be made a queen,
           If I were sure they should endure;
             But it is often seen
           When men will break promise they speak
             The wordis on the splene.
           Ye shape some wile me to beguile,
             And steal from me, I ween:
           Then were the case worse than it was,
             And I more wo-begone:
           For, in my mind, of all mankind
             I love but you alone.

    _He._ Ye shall not nede further to drede:
             I will not disparàge
           You (God defend), sith you descend
             Of so great a linàge.
           Now understand: to Westmoreland,
             Which is my heritage,

     on the splene] that is, in haste.

    I will you bring; and with a ring,
      By way of marriàge
    I will you take, and lady make,
      As shortly as I can:
    Thus have you won an Earles son,
      And not a banished man.

    _Here may ye see that women be_
      _In love meek, kind, and stable;_
    _Let never man reprove them than,_
      _Or call them variable;_
    _But rather pray God that we may_
      _To them be comfortable;_
    _Which sometime proveth such as He loveth,_
      _If they be charitable._
    _For sith men would that women should_
      _Be meek to them each one;_
    _Much more ought they to God obey,_
      _And serve but Him alone._


_26._ _As ye came from the Holy Land_

16th Cent.

    As ye came from the holy land
      Of Walsinghame,
    Met you not with my true love
      By the way as you came?

    How should I know your true love,
      That have met many a one
    As I came from the holy land,
      That have come, that have gone?


    She is neither white nor brown,
      But as the heavens fair;
    There is none hath her form divine
      In the earth or the air.

    Such a one did I meet, good sir,
      Such an angelic face,
    Who like a nymph, like a queen, did appear
      In her gait, in her grace.

    She hath left me here alone
      All alone, as unknown,
    Who sometime did me lead with herself,
      And me loved as her own.

    What’s the cause that she leaves you alone
      And a new way doth take,
    That sometime did love you as her own,
      And her joy did you make?

    I have loved her all my youth,
      But now am old, as you see:
    Love likes not the falling fruit,
      Nor the withered tree.

    Know that Love is a careless child,
      And forgets promise past:
    He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
      And in faith never fast.

    His desire is a dureless content,
      And a trustless joy;
    He is won with a world of despair,
      And is lost with a toy.

    Of womenkind such indeed is the love,
      Or the word love abusèd,
    Under which many childish desires
      And conceits are excusèd.

    But true love is a durable fire,
      In the mind ever burning,
    Never sick, never dead, never cold,
      From itself never turning.


_27._ _The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring_

16th Cent.(?)

    O western wind, when wilt thou blow
      That the small rain down can rain?
    Christ, that my love were in my arms
      And I in my bed again!


_28._ _Balow_

16th Cent.

    Balow, my babe, lie still and sleep!
    It grieves me sore to see thee weep.
    Wouldst thou be quiet I’se be glad,
    Thy mourning makes my sorrow sad:
    Balow my boy, thy mother’s joy,
    Thy father breeds me great annoy--
                  Balow, la-low!

    When he began to court my love,
    And with his sugred words me move,
    His faynings false and flattering cheer
    To me that time did not appear:
    But now I see most cruellye
    He cares ne for my babe nor me--
                  Balow, la-low!

    Lie still, my darling, sleep awhile,
    And when thou wak’st thou’le sweetly smile:
    But smile not as thy father did,
    To cozen maids: nay, God forbid!
    But yet I fear thou wilt go near
    Thy father’s heart and face to bear--
                  Balow, la-low!

    I cannot choose but ever will
    Be loving to thy father still;
    Where’er he go, where’er he ride,
    My love with him doth still abide;
    In weal or woe, where’er he go,
    My heart shall ne’er depart him fro--
                  Balow, la-low!

    But do not, do not, pretty mine,
    To faynings false thy heart incline!
    Be loyal to thy lover true,
    And never change her for a new:
    If good or fair, of her have care
    For women’s banning’s wondrous sare--
                  Balow, la-low!

    Bairn, by thy face I will beware;
    Like Sirens’ words, I’ll come not near;
    My babe and I together will live;
    He’ll comfort me when cares do grieve.
    My babe and I right soft will lie,
    And ne’er respect man’s crueltye--
                  Balow, la-low!


    Farewell, farewell, the falsest youth
    That ever kist a woman’s mouth!
    I wish all maids be warn’d by me
    Never to trust man’s curtesye;
    For if we do but chance to bow,
    They’ll use us then they care not how--
                  Balow, la-low!


_29._ _The Old Cloak_

16th Cent.(?)

           This winter’s weather it waxeth cold,
             And frost it freezeth on every hill,
           And Boreas blows his blast so bold
             That all our cattle are like to spill.
           Bell, my wife, she loves no strife;
             She said unto me quietlye,
           Rise up, and save cow Crumbock’s life!
             Man, put thine old cloak about thee!

    _He._ O Bell my wife, why dost thou flyte?
             Thou kens my cloak is very thin:
           It is so bare and over worn,
             A crickè thereon cannot renn.
           Then I’ll no longer borrow nor lend;
             For once I’ll new apparell’d be;
           To-morrow I’ll to town and spend;
             For I’ll have a new cloak about me.

    _She._ Cow Crumbock is a very good cow:
             She has been always true to the pail;
           She has helped us to butter and cheese, I trow,
             And other things she will not fail.

     _29._ flyte] scold.

           I would be loth to see her pine.
               Good husband, counsel take of me:
           It is not for us to go so fine--
               Man, take thine old cloak about thee!

    _He._ My cloak it was a very good cloak,
             It hath been always true to the wear;
           But now it is not worth a groat:
             I have had it four and forty year’.
           Sometime it was of cloth in grain:
             ’Tis now but a sigh clout, as you may see:
           It will neither hold out wind nor rain;
             And I’ll have a new cloak about me.

    _She._ It is four and forty years ago
             Sine the one of us the other did ken;
           And we have had, betwixt us two,
             Of children either nine or ten:
           We have brought them up to women and men:
             In the fear of God I trow they be.
           And why wilt thou thyself misken?
             Man, take thine old cloak about thee!

    _He._ O Bell my wife, why dost thou flyte?
             Now is now, and then was then:
           Seek now all the world throughout,
             Thou kens not clowns from gentlemen:
           They are clad in black, green, yellow and blue,
             So far above their own degree.
           Once in my life I’ll take a view;
             For I’ll have a new cloak about me.

     cloth in grain] scarlet cloth. sigh clout] a rag for straining.

    _She._ King Stephen was a worthy peer;
             His breeches cost him but a crown;
           He held them sixpence all too dear,
             Therefore he called the tailor ‘lown.’
           He was a king and wore the crown,
             And thou’se but of a low degree:
           It’s pride that puts this country down:
             Man, take thy old cloak about thee!

    _He._ Bell my wife, she loves not strife,
             Yet she will lead me, if she can;
           And to maintain an easy life
             I oft must yield, though I’m good-man.
           It’s not for a man with a woman to threap,
             Unless he first give o’er the plea:
           As we began, so will we keep,
             And I’ll take my old cloak about me.

     _29._ threap] argue.




JOHN SKELTON

1460?-1529


_30._ _To Mistress Margery Wentworth_

    With margerain gentle,
      The flower of goodlihead,
    Embroidered the mantle
      Is of your maidenhead.
    Plainly I cannot glose;
      Ye be, as I divine,
    The pretty primrose,
      The goodly columbine.

     _30._ margerain] marjoram.

    Benign, courteous, and meek,
      With wordes well devised;
    In you, who list to seek,
      Be virtues well comprised.
    With margerain gentle,
      The flower of goodlihead,
    Embroidered the mantle
      Is of your maidenhead.


_31._ _To Mistress Margaret Hussey_

      Merry Margaret
      As midsummer flower,
      Gentle as falcon
      Or hawk of the tower:
    With solace and gladness,
    Much mirth and no madness,
    All good and no badness;
        So joyously,
        So maidenly,
        So womanly
        Her demeaning
        In every thing,
        Far, far passing
        That I can indite,
        Or suffice to write
      Of Merry Margaret
      As midsummer flower,
      Gentle as falcon
      Or hawk of the tower.
      As patient and still
      And as full of good will
      As fair Isaphill,
      Coliander,
      Sweet pomander,
      Good Cassander;
      Steadfast of thought,
      Well made, well wrought,
      Far may be sought,
      Ere that ye can find
      So courteous, so kind
      As merry Margaret,
      This midsummer flower,
      Gentle as falcon
      Or hawk of the tower.

     _31._ Isaphill] Hypsipyle. coliander] coriander seed, an aromatic.
     pomander] a ball of perfume. Cassander] Cassandra.




STEPHEN HAWES

d. 1523


_32._ _The True Knight_

    For knighthood is not in the feats of warre,
      As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong,
    But in a cause which truth can not defarre:
      He ought himself for to make sure and strong,
      Justice to keep mixt with mercý among:
        And no quarrell a knight ought to take
        But for a truth, or for the common’s sake.

     _32._ defarre] undo.


_33._ _An Epitaph_

    O mortal folk, you may behold and see
      How I lie here, sometime a mighty knight;
    The end of joy and all prosperitee
      Is death at last, thorough his course and might:
      After the day there cometh the dark night,
        For though the daye be never so long,
        At last the bells ringeth to evensong.




SIR THOMAS WYATT

1503-1542


_34._ _Forget not yet_

_The Lover Beseecheth his Mistress not to Forget his Steadfast Faith and
True Intent_

    Forget not yet the tried intent
    Of such a truth as I have meant;
    My great travail so gladly spent,
    Forget not yet!

    Forget not yet when first began
    The weary life ye know, since whan
    The suit, the service, none tell can;
    Forget not yet!

    Forget not yet the great assays,
    The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
    The painful patience in delays,
    Forget not yet!

    Forget not! O, forget not this!--
    How long ago hath been, and is,
    The mind that never meant amiss--
    Forget not yet!


    Forget not then thine own approved,
    The which so long hath thee so loved,
    Whose steadfast faith yet never moved:
    Forget not this!


_35._ _The Appeal_

_An Earnest Suit to his Unkind Mistress, not to Forsake him_

    And wilt thou leave me thus!
    Say nay, say nay, for shame!
    --To save thee from the blame
    Of all my grief and grame.
    And wilt thou leave me thus?
        Say nay! say nay!

    And wilt thou leave me thus,
    That hath loved thee so long
    In wealth and woe among:
    And is thy heart so strong
    As for to leave me thus?
        Say nay! say nay!

    And wilt thou leave me thus,
    That hath given thee my heart
    Never for to depart
    Neither for pain nor smart:
    And wilt thou leave me thus?
        Say nay! say nay!

     _35._ grame] sorrow.

    And wilt thou leave me thus,
    And have no more pitye
    Of him that loveth thee?
    Alas, thy cruelty!
    And wilt thou leave me thus?
        Say nay! say nay!


_36._ _A Revocation_

    What should I say?
    --Since Faith is dead.
    And Truth away
      From you is fled?
      Should I be led
        With doubleness?
        Nay! nay! mistress.

    I promised you,
      And you promised me,
    To be as true
      As I would be.
      But since I see
        Your double heart,
        Farewell my part!

    Thought for to take
      ’Tis not my mind;
    But to forsake
      One so unkind;
      And as I find
        So will I trust.
        Farewell, unjust!


    Can ye say nay
      But that you said
    That I alway
      Should be obeyed?
      And--thus betrayed
        Or that I wist!
        Farewell, unkist!


_37._ _Vixi Puellis Nuper Idoneus ..._

    They flee from me that sometime did me seek,
      With naked foot stalking within my chamber:
    Once have I seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
      That now are wild, and do not once remember
      That sometime they have put themselves in danger
    To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
    Busily seeking in continual change.

    Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise
      Twenty times better; but once especial--
    In thin array: after a pleasant guise,
      When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,
      And she me caught in her arms long and small,
    And therewithal so sweetly did me kiss,
    And softly said, ‘_Dear heart, how like you this?_’

    It was no dream; for I lay broad awaking:
      But all is turn’d now, through my gentleness,
    Into a bitter fashion of forsaking;
      And I have leave to go of her goodness;
      And she also to use new-fangleness.
    But since that I unkindly so am servèd,
    ‘_How like you this?_’--what hath she now deservèd?


_38._ _To His Lute_

    My lute, awake! perform the last
    Labour that thou and I shall waste,
      And end that I have now begun;
    For when this song is said and past,
      My lute, be still, for I have done.

    As to be heard where ear is none,
    As lead to grave in marble stone,
      My song may pierce her heart as soon:
    Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan?
      No, no, my lute! for I have done.

    The rocks do not so cruelly
    Repulse the waves continually,
      As she my suit and affectiòn;
    So that I am past remedy:
      Whereby my lute and I have done.

    Proud of the spoil that thou hast got
    Of simple hearts thorough Love’s shot,
      By whom, unkind, thou hast them won;
    Think not he hath his bow forgot,
      Although my lute and I have done.

    Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain,
    That makest but game of earnest pain:
      Trow not alone under the sun
    Unquit to cause thy lover’s plain,
      Although my lute and I have done.


    May chance thee lie wither’d and old
    The winter nights that are so cold,
      Plaining in vain unto the moon:
    Thy wishes then dare not be told:
      Care then who list! for I have done.

    And then may chance thee to repent
    The time that thou has lost and spent
      To cause thy lover’s sigh and swoon:
    Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,
      And wish and want as I have done.

    Now cease, my lute! this is the last
    Labour that thou and I shall waste,
      And ended is that we begun:
    Now is this song both sung and past--
      My lute, be still, for I have done.




HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY

1516-47


_39._ _Description of Spring_

_Wherein each thing renews, save only the Lover_

    The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
    With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale:
    The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
    The turtle to her make hath told her tale.
    Summer is come, for every spray now springs:
    The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
    The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
    The fishes flete with new repairèd scale.

     _39._ make] mate.

    The adder all her slough away she slings;
    The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;
    The busy bee her honey now she mings;
    Winter is worn that was the flowers’ bale.

    And thus I see among these pleasant things
    Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

     _39._ mings] mingles, mixes.


_40._ _Complaint of the Absence of Her Lover being upon the Sea_

    O happy dames! that may embrace
      The fruit of your delight,
    Help to bewail the woful case
      And eke the heavy plight
    Of me, that wonted to rejoice
    The fortune of my pleasant choice:
    Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice.

    In ship, freight with rememberance
      Of thoughts and pleasures past,
    He sails that hath in governance
      My life while it will last:
    With scalding sighs, for lack of gale,
    Furthering his hope, that is his sail,
    Toward me, the swete port of his avail,

    Alas! how oft in dreams I see
      Those eyes that were my food;
    Which sometime so delighted me,
      That yet they do me good:
    Wherewith I wake with his return
    Whose absent flame did make me burn:
    But when I find the lack, Lord! how I mourn!

    When other lovers in arms across
      Rejoice their chief delight,
    Drownèd in tears, to mourn my loss
      I stand the bitter night
    In my window where I may see
    Before the winds how the clouds flee:
    Lo! what a mariner love hath made me!

    And in green waves when the salt flood
      Doth rise by rage of wind,
    A thousand fancies in that mood
      Assail my restless mind.
    Alas! now drencheth my sweet foe,
    That with the spoil of my heart did go,
    And left me; but alas! why did he so?

    And when the seas wax calm again
      To chase fro me annoy,
    My doubtful hope doth cause me plain;
      So dread cuts off my joy.
    Thus is my wealth mingled with woe
    And of each thought a doubt doth grow;
    --Now he comes! Will he come? Alas! no, no.

     _40._ drencheth] i.e. is drenched or drowned.


_41._ _The Means to attain Happy Life_

    Martial, the things that do attain
    The happy life be these, I find:--
    The richesse left, not got with pain;
      The fruitful ground, the quiet mind;
    The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
      No charge of rule, nor governance;
    Without disease, the healthful life;
      The household of continuance;

    The mean diet, no delicate fare;
      True wisdom join’d with simpleness;
    The night dischargèd of all care,
      Where wine the wit may not oppress.

    The faithful wife, without debate;
      Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
    Contented with thine own estate
      Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.




NICHOLAS GRIMALD

1519-62


_42._ _A True Love_

    What sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants we see,
    What dear delight the blooms to bees, my true love is to me!
    As fresh and lusty Ver foul Winter doth exceed--
    As morning bright, with scarlet sky, doth pass the evening’s weed--
    As mellow pears above the crabs esteemèd be--
    So doth my love surmount them all, whom yet I hap to see!
    The oak shall olives bear, the lamb the lion fray,
    The owl shall match the nightingale in tuning of her lay,

     _42._ fray] affright.

    Or I my love let slip out of mine entire heart,
    So deep reposèd in my breast is she for her desart!
    For many blessèd gifts, O happy, happy land!
    Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand!
    Yet, land, more is thy bliss that, in this cruel age,
    A Venus’ imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage.
    Among the Muses Nine a tenth if Jove would make,
    And to the Graces Three a fourth, her would Apollo take.
    Let some for honour hunt, and hoard the massy gold:
    With her so I may live and die, my weal cannot be told.




ALEXANDER SCOTT

1520?-158-


_43._ _A Bequest of His Heart_

    Hence, heart, with her that must depart,
      And hald thee with thy soverane!
    For I had liever want ane heart.
      Nor have the heart that dois me pain.
      Therefore, go, with thy luve remain,
    And let me leif thus unmolest;
      And see that thou come not again,
    But bide with her thou luvis best.

    Sen she that I have servit lang
      Is to depart so suddenly,
    Address thee now, for thou sall gang
      And bear thy lady company.

     _43._ hald] keep. sen] since.

      Fra she be gone, heartless am I,
    For quhy? thou art with her possest.
      Therefore, my heart, go hence in high,
    And bide with her thou luvis best.

    Though this belappit body here
      Be bound to servitude and thrall,
    My faithful heart is free entier
      And mind to serve my lady at all.
      Would God that I were perigall
    Under that redolent rose to rest!
      Yet at the least, my heart, thou sall
    Abide with her thou luvis best.

    Sen in your garth the lily quhyte
      May not remain amang the laif,
    Adieu the flower of whole delite!
      Adieu the succour that may me saif!
      Adieu the fragrant balme suaif,
    And lamp of ladies lustiest!
      My faithful heart she shall it haif
    To bide with her it luvis best.

    Deploir, ye ladies cleir of hue,
      Her absence, sen she must depart!
    And, specially, ye luveris true
      That wounded bene with Luvis dart.
      For some of you sall want ane heart
    As well as I; therefore at last
      Do go with mine, with mind inwart,
    And bide with her thou luvis best!

     belappit] downtrodden. perigall] made equal to, privileged. garth]
     garden-close. laif] rest. with mind inwart] with inner mind, i.e.
     in spirit.


_44._ _A Rondel of Love_

    Lo, quhat it is to love
      Learn ye that list to prove,
    By me, I say, that no ways may
      The ground of grief remove,
    But still decay both nicht and day:
      Lo, quhat it is to love!

      Love is ane fervent fire
      Kindlit without desire,
    Short pleasure, long displeasure,
      Repentance is the hire;
    Ane pure tressour without measour;
      Love is ane fervent fire.

      To love and to be wise,
      To rage with good advice;
    Now thus, now than, so gois the game,
      Incertain is the dice;
    There is no man, I say, that can
      Both love and to be wise.

      Flee always from the snare,
      Learn at me to beware;
    It is ane pain, and double trane
      Of endless woe and care;
    For to refrain that danger plain,
      Flee always from the snare.




ROBERT WEVER

c. 1550


_45._ _In Youth is Pleasure_

    In a harbour grene aslepe whereas I lay,
    The byrdes sang swete in the middes of the day,
    I dreamèd fast of mirth and play:
        In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

    Methought I walked still to and fro,
    And from her company I could not go--
    But when I waked it was not so:
        In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

    Therefore my hart is surely pyght
    Of her alone to have a sight
    Which is my joy and hartes delight:
        In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.




RICHARD EDWARDES

1523-66


_46._ _Amantium Iræ_

    In going to my naked bed as one that would have slept,
    I heard a wife sing to her child, that long before had wept;
    She sighèd sore and sang full sweet, to bring the babe to rest,
    That would not cease but crièd still, in sucking at her breast.
    She was full weary of her watch, and grievèd with her child,
    She rockèd it and rated it, till that on her it smiled.
    Then did she say, Now have I found this proverb true to prove,
    The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.

    Then took I paper, pen, and ink, this proverb for to write,
    In register for to remain of such a worthy wight:
    As she proceeded thus in song unto her little brat,
    Much matter utter’d she of weight, in place whereas she sat:
    And provèd plain there was no beast, nor creature bearing life,
    Could well be known to live in love without discord and strife:
    Then kissèd she her little babe, and sware by God above,
    The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.

    She said that neither king nor prince nor lord could live aright,
    Until their puissance they did prove, their manhood and their might.
    When manhood shall be matched so that fear can take no place,
    Then weary works make warriors each other to embrace,
    And left their force that failèd them, which did consume the rout,
    That might before have lived their time, their strength and nature out:
    Then did she sing as one that thought no man could her reprove,
    The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.

    She said she saw no fish nor fowl, nor beast within her haunt,
    That met a stranger in their kind, but could give it a taunt:
    Since flesh might not endure, but rest must wrath succeed,
    And force the fight to fall to play in pasture where they feed,
    So noble nature can well end the work she hath begun,
    And bridle well that will not cease her tragedy in some:
    Thus in song she oft rehearsed, as did her well behove,
    The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.

    I marvel much pardy (quoth she) for to behold the rout,
    To see man, woman, boy and beast, to toss the world about:
    Some kneel, some crouch, some beck, some check, and some can smoothly smile,
    And some embrace others in arm, and there think many a wile,
    Some stand aloof at cap and knee, some humble and some stout,
    Yet are they never friends in deed until they once fall out:
    Thus ended she her song and said, before she did remove,
    The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.




GEORGE GASCOIGNE

1525?-77


_47._ _A Lover’s Lullaby_

    Sing lullaby, as women do,
      Wherewith they bring their babes to rest;
    And lullaby can I sing too,
      As womanly as can the best.
    With lullaby they still the child;
    And if I be not much beguiled,
    Full many a wanton babe have I,
    Which must be still’d with lullaby.

    First lullaby my youthful years,
      It is now time to go to bed:
    For crookèd age and hoary hairs
      Have won the haven within my head.
    With lullaby, then, youth be still;
    With lullaby content thy will;
    Since courage quails and comes behind,
    Go sleep, and so beguile thy mind!

    Next lullaby my gazing eyes,
      Which wonted were to glance apace;
    For every glass may now suffice
      To show the furrows in thy face.
    With lullaby then wink awhile;
    With lullaby your looks beguile;
    Let no fair face, nor beauty bright,
    Entice you eft with vain delight.

    And lullaby my wanton will;
      Let reason’s rule now reign thy thought;
    Since all too late I find by skill
      How dear I have thy fancies bought;
    With lullaby now take thine ease,
    With lullaby thy doubts appease;
    For trust to this, if thou be still,
    My body shall obey thy will.

    Thus lullaby my youth, mine eyes,
      My will, my ware, and all that was:
    I can no more delays devise;
      But welcome pain, let pleasure pass.
    With lullaby now take your leave;
    With lullaby your dreams deceive;
    And when you rise with waking eye,
    Remember then this lullaby.




ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE

1540?-1610?


_48._ _The Night is Near Gone_

    Hey! now the day dawis;
    The jolly cock crawis;
    Now shroudis the shawis
      Thro’ Nature anon.
    The thissel-cock cryis
    On lovers wha lyis:
    Now skaillis the skyis;
      The nicht is neir gone.

    The fieldis ouerflowis
    With gowans that growis,
    Quhair lilies like low is
      As red as the rone.

     _48._ shroudis] dress themselves. shawis] woods. skaillis] clears.
     gowans] daisies. low] flame. rone] rowan.

    The turtle that true is,
    With notes that renewis,
    Her pairty pursuis:
      The nicht is neir gone.

    Now hairtis with hindis
    Conform to their kindis,
    Hie tursis their tyndis
      On ground quhair they grone.
    Now hurchonis, with hairis,
    Aye passis in pairis;
    Quhilk duly declaris
      The nicht is neir gone.

    The season excellis
    Through sweetness that smellis;
    Now Cupid compellis
      Our hairtis echone
    On Venus wha waikis,
    To muse on our maikis,
    Syne sing for their saikis--
      ‘The nicht is neir gone!’

    All courageous knichtis
    Aganis the day dichtis
    The breist-plate that bright is
      To fight with their fone.
    The stonèd steed stampis
    Through courage, and crampis,
    Syne on the land lampis:
      The nicht is neir gone.

     pairty] partner, mate. tursis] carry. tyndis] antlers. grone]
     groan, bell. hurchonis] hedgehogs, ‘urchins.’ maikis] mates. fone]
     foes. stonèd steed] stallion. crampis] prances. lampis] gallops.

    The freikis on feildis
    That wight wapins weildis
    With shyning bright shieldis
      At Titan in trone;
    Stiff speiris in reistis
    Ouer corseris crestis
    Are broke on their breistis:
      The nicht is neir gone.

    So hard are their hittis,
    Some sweyis, some sittis,
    And some perforce flittis
      On ground quhile they grone.
    Syne groomis that gay is
    On blonkis that brayis
    With swordis assayis:--
      The nicht is neir gone.

     _48._ freikis] men, warriors. wight wapins] stout weapons. at
     Titan] over against Titan (the sun), or read ‘as.’ flittis] are
     cast. blonkis] white palfreys.




WILLIAM STEVENSON

1530?-1575


_49._ _Jolly Good Ale and Old_

    I cannot eat but little meat,
      My stomach is not good;
    But sure I think that I can drink
      With him that wears a hood.
    Though I go bare, take ye no care,
      I nothing am a-cold;
    I stuff my skin so full within
      Of jolly good ale and old.
        Back and side go bare, go bare;
        Both foot and hand go cold;
        But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
        Whether it be new or old.

    I love no roast but a nut-brown toast,
      And a crab laid in the fire;
    A little bread shall do me stead;
      Much bread I not desire.
    No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow,
      Can hurt me if I wold;
    I am so wrapp’d and thoroughly lapp’d
      Of jolly good ale and old.
        Back and side go bare, go bare, &c.

    And Tib, my wife, that as her life
      Loveth well good ale to seek,
    Full oft drinks she till ye may see
      The tears run down her cheek:
    Then doth she trowl to me the bowl
      Even as a maltworm should,
    And saith, ‘Sweetheart, I took my part
      Of this jolly good ale and old.’
        Back and side go bare, go bare, &c.

    Now let them drink till they nod and wink,
      Even as good fellows should do;
    They shall not miss to have the bliss
      Good ale doth bring men to;
    And all poor souls that have scour’d bowls
      Or have them lustily troll’d,
    God save the lives of them and their wives,
      Whether they be young or old.
        Back and side go bare, go bare;
        Both foot and hand go cold;
        But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
        Whether it be new or old.




ANONYMOUS (SCOTTISH)

16th Cent.


_50._ _When Flora had O’erfret the Firth_

    Quhen Flora had o’erfret the firth
      In May of every moneth queen;
    Quhen merle and mavis singis with mirth
      Sweet melling in the shawis sheen;
      Quhen all luvaris rejoicit bene
    And most desirous of their prey,
      I heard a lusty luvar mene
    --‘I luve, but I dare nocht assay!’

    ‘Strong are the pains I daily prove,
      But yet with patience I sustene,
    I am so fetterit with the luve
      Only of my lady sheen,
      Quhilk for her beauty micht be queen,
    Nature so craftily alway
      Has done depaint that sweet serene:
    --Quhom I luve I dare nocht assay.

    ‘She is so bricht of hyd and hue,
      I luve but her alone, I ween;
    Is none her luve that may eschew,
      That blinkis of that dulce amene;
      So comely cleir are her twa een
    That she mae luvaris dois affray
      Than ever of Greece did fair Helene:
    --Quhom I luve I dare nocht assay!’

     o’erfret] adorned. shawis] woods. sheen] beautiful. mene] mourn.
     hyd] skin. blinkis] gets a glimpse. dulce amene] gentle and
     pleasant one. mae] more.


_51._ _Lusty May_

16th Cent.

    O lusty May, with Flora queen!
      The balmy dropis from Phoebus sheen
      Preluciand beams before the day:
    By that Diana growis green
      Through gladness of this lusty May.

    Then Esperus, that is so bricht,
    Til woful hairtis castis his light,
      With bankis that bloomis on every brae;
    And schouris are shed forth of their sicht
      Through gladness of this lusty May.

    Birdis on bewis of every birth,
    Rejoicing notis makand their mirth
      Richt plesantly upon the spray,
    With flourishingis o’er field and firth
      Through gladness of this lusty May.

    All luvaris that are in care
    To their ladies they do repair
      In fresh morningis before the day,
    And are in mirth ay mair and mair
      Through gladness of this lusty May.

     _51._ sheen] bright. til] into. schouris] showers. bewis] boughs.
     birth] kind. 52. wiss] wish.


_52._ _My Heart is High Above_

16th Cent.

    My heart is high above, my body is full of bliss,
    For I am set in luve as well as I would wiss
    I luve my lady pure and she luvis me again,
    I am her serviture, she is my soverane;
    She is my very heart, I am her howp and heill,
    She is my joy invart, I am her luvar leal;
    I am her bond and thrall, she is at my command;
    I am perpetual her man, both foot and hand;
    The thing that may her please my body sall fulfil;
    Quhatever her disease, it does my body ill.
    My bird, my bonny ane, my tender babe venust,
    My luve, my life alane, my liking and my lust!
    We interchange our hairtis in others armis soft,
    Spriteless we twa depairtis, usand our luvis oft.
    We mourn when licht day dawis, we plain the nicht is short,
    We curse the cock that crawis, that hinderis our disport.
    I glowffin up aghast, quhen I her miss on nicht,
    And in my oxter fast I find the bowster richt;
    Then languor on me lies like Morpheus the mair,
    Quhilk causes me uprise and to my sweet repair.
    And then is all the sorrow forth of remembrance
    That ever I had a-forrow in luvis observance.
    Thus never I do rest, so lusty a life I lead,
    Quhen that I list to test the well of womanheid.
    Luvaris in pain, I pray God send you sic remeid
    As I have nicht and day, you to defend from deid!
    Therefore be ever true unto your ladies free,
    And they will on you rue as mine has done on me.

     heill] health. invart] inward. venust] delightful. glowffin] blink
     on awaking. oxter] armpit. a-forrow] aforetime.




NUMBERS

FROM

ELIZABETHAN MISCELLANIES & SONG-BOOKS

BY UNNAMED OR UNCERTAIN AUTHORS


_53._ _A Praise of His Lady_

Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557

    Give place, you ladies, and begone!
      Boast not yourselves at all!
    For here at hand approacheth one
      Whose face will stain you all.

    The virtue of her lively looks
      Excels the precious stone;
    I wish to have none other books
      To read or look upon.

    In each of her two crystal eyes
      Smileth a naked boy;
    It would you all in heart suffice
      To see that lamp of joy.

    I think Nature hath lost the mould
      Where she her shape did take;
    Or else I doubt if Nature could
      So fair a creature make.

    She may be well compared
      Unto the Phœnix kind,
    Whose like was never seen or heard,
      That any man can find.


    In life she is Diana chaste,
      In troth Penelopey;
    In word and eke in deed steadfast.
    --What will you more we say?

    If all the world were sought so far,
      Who could find such a wight?
    Her beauty twinkleth like a star
      Within the frosty night.

    Her rosial colour comes and goes
      With such a comely grace,
    More ruddier, too, than doth the rose,
      Within her lively face.

    At Bacchus’ feast none shall her meet,
      Ne at no wanton play,
    Nor gazing in an open street,
      Nor gadding as a stray.

    The modest mirth that she doth use
      Is mix’d with shamefastness;
    All vice she doth wholly refuse,
      And hateth idleness.

    O Lord! it is a world to see
      How virtue can repair,
    And deck in her such honesty,
      Whom Nature made so fair.

    Truly she doth so far exceed
      Our women nowadays,
    As doth the jeliflower a weed;
      And more a thousand ways.


    How might I do to get a graff
      Of this unspotted tree?
    --For all the rest are plain but chaff,
      Which seem good corn to be.

    This gift alone I shall her give;
      When death doth what he can,
    Her honest fame shall ever live
      Within the mouth of man.

? by _John Heywood_


_54._ _To Her Sea-faring Lover_

Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557

      Shall I thus ever long, and be no whit the neare?
        And shall I still complain to thee, the which me will not hear?
      Alas! say nay! say nay! and be no more so dumb,
    But open thou thy manly mouth and say that thou wilt come:
      Whereby my heart may think, although I see not thee,
    That thou wilt come--thy word so sware--if thou a live man be.
      The roaring hugy waves they threaten my poor ghost,
    And toss thee up and down the seas in danger to be lost.
      Shall they not make me fear that they have swallowed thee?
    --But as thou art most sure alive, so wilt thou come to me.
      Whereby I shall go see thy ship ride on the strand,
    And think and say _Lo where he comes_ and _Sure here will he land:_

     _54._ neare] nearer.

      And then I shall lift up to thee my little hand,
    And thou shalt think thine heart in ease, in health to see me stand.
      And if thou come indeed (as Christ thee send to do!)
    Those arms which miss thee now shall then embrace [and hold] thee too:
      Each vein to every joint the lively blood shall spread
    Which now for want of thy glad sight doth show full pale and dead.
      But if thou slip thy troth, and do not come at all,
    As minutes in the clock do strike so call for death I shall:
      To please both thy false heart and rid myself from woe,
    That rather had to die in troth than live forsaken so!


_55._ _The Faithless Shepherdess_

William Byrd’s _Songs of
Sundry Natures_, 1589

    While that the sun with his beams hot
      Scorchèd the fruits in vale and mountain,
    Philon the shepherd, late forgot,
      Sitting beside a crystal fountain
          In shadow of a green oak tree,
          Upon his pipe this song play’d he:
    Adieu, Love, adieu, Love, untrue Love!
    Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu, Love!
    Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

    So long as I was in your sight
      I was your heart, your soul, your treasure;
    And evermore you sobb’d and sigh’d
      Burning in flames beyond all measure:
       --Three days endured your love to me,
          And it was lost in other three!
    Adieu, Love, adieu, Love, untrue Love!
    Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu, Love!
    Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

    Another shepherd you did see,
      To whom your heart was soon enchainèd;
    Full soon your love was leapt from me,
      Full soon my place he had obtainèd.
        Soon came a third your love to win,
        And we were out and he was in.
    Adieu, Love, adieu, Love, untrue Love!
    Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu, Love!
    Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.

    Sure you have made me passing glad
      That you your mind so soon removèd,
    Before that I the leisure had
      To choose you for my best belovèd:
          For all my love was pass’d and done
          Two days before it was begun.
    Adieu, Love, adieu, Love, untrue Love!
    Untrue Love, untrue Love, adieu, Love!
    Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.


_56._ _Crabbed Age and Youth_

_The Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599

    Crabbèd Age and Youth
    Cannot live together:
    Youth is full of pleasance,
    Age is full of care;
    Youth like summer morn,
    Age like winter weather;
    Youth like summer brave,
    Age like winter bare.
    Youth is full of sport,
    Age’s breath is short;
    Youth is nimble, Age is lame;
    Youth is hot and bold,
    Age is weak and cold;
    Youth is wild, and Age is tame.
    Age, I do abhor thee;
    Youth, I do adore thee;
    O, my Love, my Love is young!
    Age, I do defy thee:
    O, sweet shepherd, hie thee!
    For methinks thou stay’st too long.

? by _William Shakespeare_


_57._ _Phyllida’s Love-Call_

_England’s Helicon_, 1600

    _Phyllida._ Corydon, arise, my Corydon!
                  Titan shineth clear.
     _Corydon._ Who is it that calleth Corydon?
                  Who is it that I hear?
        _Phyl._ Phyllida, thy true love, calleth thee,
                  Arise then, arise then,
                    Arise and keep thy flock with me!
         _Cor._ Phyllida, my true love, is it she?
                  I come then, I come then,
                    I come and keep my flock with thee.

         _Phyl._ Here are cherries ripe for my Corydon;
                  Eat them for my sake.
          _Cor._ Here’s my oaten pipe, my lovely one,
                  Sport for thee to make.

        _Phyl._ Here are threads, my true love, fine as silk,
                  To knit thee, to knit thee,
                    A pair of stockings white as milk.
         _Cor._ Here are reeds, my true love, fine and neat,
                  To make thee, to make thee,
                    A bonnet to withstand the heat.

        _Phyl._ I will gather flowers, my Corydon,
                  To set in thy cap.
         _Cor._ I will gather pears, my lovely one,
                  To put in thy lap.
        _Phyl._ I will buy my true love garters gay,
                  For Sundays, for Sundays,
                    To wear about his legs so tall.
         _Cor._ I will buy my true love yellow say,
                  For Sundays, for Sundays,
                    To wear about her middle small.

        _Phyl._ When my Corydon sits on a hill
                  Making melody--
         _Cor._ When my lovely one goes to her wheel,
                  Singing cheerily--
        _Phyl._ Sure methinks my true love doth excel
                  For sweetness, for sweetness,
                    Our Pan, that old Arcadian knight.
         _Cor._ And methinks my true love bears the bell
                  For clearness, for clearness,
                    Beyond the nymphs that be so bright.

        _Phyl._ Had my Corydon, my Corydon,
                  Been, alack! her swain--
         _Cor._ Had my lovely one, my lovely one,
                  Been in Ida plain--

     say] _soie_, silk.

    _Phyl._ Cynthia Endymion had refused,
              Preferring, preferring,
                My Corydon to play withal.
     _Cor._ The Queen of Love had been excused
              Bequeathing, bequeathing,
                My Phyllida the golden ball.

    _Phyl._ Yonder comes my mother, Corydon!
              Whither shall I fly?
     _Cor._ Under yonder beech, my lovely one,
              While she passeth by.
    _Phyl._ Say to her thy true love was not here;
              Remember, remember,
                To-morrow is another day.
     _Cor._ Doubt me not, my true love, do not fear;
              Farewell then, farewell then!
                Heaven keep our loves alway!


_58._ _A Pedlar_

John Dowland’s _Second Book of
Songs or Airs_, 1600

    Fine knacks for ladies! cheap, choice, brave, and new,
      Good pennyworths--but money cannot move:
    I keep a fair but for the Fair to view--
      A beggar may be liberal of love.
    Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true,
                              The heart is true.

    Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again;
      My trifles come as treasures from my mind:
    It is a precious jewel to be plain;
      Sometimes in shell the orient’st pearls we find:--
    Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain!
                              Of me a grain!

_59._ _Hey nonny no!_

Christ Church MS.

    Hey nonny no!
    Men are fools that wish to die!
    Is’t not fine to dance and sing
    When the bells of death do ring?
    Is’t not fine to swim in wine,
    And turn upon the toe,
    And sing hey nonny no!
    When the winds blow and the seas flow?
    Hey nonny no!


_60._ _Preparations_

Christ Church MS.

    Yet if His Majesty, our sovereign lord,
    Should of his own accord
    Friendly himself invite,
    And say ‘I’ll be your guest to-morrow night,’
    How should we stir ourselves, call and command
    All hands to work! ‘Let no man idle stand!

    ‘Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall;
    See they be fitted all;
    Let there be room to eat
    And order taken that there want no meat.
    See every sconce and candlestick made bright,
    That without tapers they may give a light.

    ‘Look to the presence: are the carpets spread,
    The dazie o’er the head,
    The cushions in the chairs,
    And all the candles lighted on the stairs?
    Perfume the chambers, and in any case
    Let each man give attendance in his place!’

    Thus, if a king were coming, would we do;
    And ’twere good reason too;
    For ’tis a duteous thing
    To show all honour to an earthly king,
    And after all our travail and our cost,
    So he be pleased, to think no labour lost.

    But at the coming of the King of Heaven
    All’s set at six and seven;
    We wallow in our sin,
    Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
    We entertain Him always like a stranger,
    And, as at first, still lodge Him in the manger.


_61._ _The New Jerusalem_

_Song of Mary the Mother of
Christ_ (London: E. Alide), 1601

    Hierusalem, my happy home,
      When shall I come to thee?
    When shall my sorrows have an end,
      Thy joys when shall I see?

    O happy harbour of the Saints!
      O sweet and pleasant soil!
    In thee no sorrow may be found,
      No grief, no care, no toil.

    There lust and lucre cannot dwell,
      There envy bears no sway;
    There is no hunger, heat, nor cold,
      But pleasure every way.

    Thy walls are made of precious stones,
      Thy bulwarks diamonds square;
    Thy gates are of right orient pearl,
      Exceeding rich and rare.

    Thy turrets and thy pinnacles
      With carbuncles do shine;
    Thy very streets are paved with gold,
      Surpassing clear and fine.

    Ah, my sweet home, Hierusalem,
      Would God I were in thee!
    Would God my woes were at an end,
      Thy joys that I might see!

    Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
      Continually are green;
    There grows such sweet and pleasant flowers
      As nowhere else are seen.

    Quite through the streets, with silver sound,
      The flood of Life doth flow;
    Upon whose banks on every side
      The wood of Life doth grow.

    There trees for evermore bear fruit,
      And evermore do spring;
    There evermore the angels sit,
      And evermore do sing.

    Our Lady sings _Magnificat_
      With tones surpassing sweet;
    And all the virgins bear their part,
      Sitting about her feet.

    Hierusalem, my happy home,
      Would God I were in thee!
    Would God my woes were at an end,
      Thy joys that I might see!

_62._ _Icarus_

Robert Jones’s _Second Book of
Songs and Airs_, 1601

    Love wing’d my Hopes and taught me how to fly
    Far from base earth, but not to mount too high:
          For true pleasure
          Lives in measure,
          Which if men forsake,
    Blinded they into folly run and grief for pleasure take.

    But my vain Hopes, proud of their new-taught flight,
    Enamour’d sought to woo the sun’s fair light,
          Whose rich brightness
          Moved their lightness
          To aspire so high
    That all scorch’d and consumed with fire now drown’d in woe they lie.

    And none but Love their woeful hap did rue,
    For Love did know that their desires were true;
          Though fate frownèd,
          And now drownèd
          They in sorrow dwell,
    It was the purest light of heav’n for whose fair love they fell.


_63._ _Madrigal_

Davison’s _Poetical Rhapsody_, 1602

    My Love in her attire doth show her wit,
      It doth so well become her;
    For every season she hath dressings fit,
      For Winter, Spring, and Summer.
        No beauty she doth miss
          When all her robes are on:
        But Beauty’s self she is
          When all her robes are gone.

_64._ _How can the Heart forget her?_

Davison’s _Poetical Rhapsody_, 1602

    At her fair hands how have I grace entreated
    With prayers oft repeated!
    Yet still my love is thwarted:
    Heart, let her go, for she’ll not be converted--
                Say, shall she go?
                O no, no, no, no, no!
    She is most fair, though she be marble-hearted.

    How often have my sighs declared my anguish,
    Wherein I daily languish!
    Yet still she doth procure it:
    Heart, let her go, for I can not endure it--
                Say, shall she go?
                O no, no, no, no, no!
    She gave the wound, and she alone must cure it.

    But shall I still a true affection owe her,
    Which prayers, sighs, tears do show her,
    And shall she still disdain me?
    Heart, let her go, if they no grace can gain me--
                Say, shall she go?
                O no, no, no, no, no!
    She made me hers, and hers she will retain me.

    But if the love that hath and still doth burn me
    No love at length return me,
    Out of my thoughts I’ll set her:
    Heart, let her go, O heart I pray thee, let her!
                Say, shall she go?
                O no, no, no, no, no!
    Fix’d in the heart, how can the heart forget her?

? _F._ or _W. Davison_

_65._ _Tears_

John Dowland’s _Third and Last
Book of Songs or Airs_, 1603

    Weep you no more, sad fountains;
      What need you flow so fast?
    Look how the snowy mountains
      Heaven’s sun doth gently waste!
    But my Sun’s heavenly eyes
        View not your weeping,
        That now lies sleeping
    Softly, now softly lies
              Sleeping.

    Sleep is a reconciling,
      A rest that peace begets;
    Doth not the sun rise smiling
      When fair at even he sets?
    Rest you then, rest, sad eyes!
        Melt not in weeping,
        While she lies sleeping
    Softly, now softly lies
              Sleeping.


_66._ _My Lady’s Tears_

John Dowland’s _Third and Last
Book of Songs or Airs_, 1603

    I saw my Lady weep,
      And Sorrow proud to be advancèd so
    In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.
      Her face was full of woe;
    But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
    Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

        Sorrow was there made fair,
    And Passion wise; Tears a delightful thing;
    Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
        She made her sighs to sing,
    And all things with so sweet a sadness move
    As made my heart at once both grieve, and love.

        O fairer than aught else
    The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
    Enough, enough: your joyful look excels:
        Tears kill the heart, believe.
    O strive not to be excellent in woe,
    Which only breeds your beauty’s overthrow.


_67._ _Sister, Awake!_

Thomas Bateson’s _First Set of
English Madrigals_, 1604

    Sister, awake! close not your eyes!
      The day her light discloses,
    And the bright morning doth arise
      Out of her bed of roses.

    See the clear sun, the world’s bright eye,
      In at our window peeping:
    Lo, how he blusheth to espy
      Us idle wenches sleeping!

    Therefore awake! make haste, I say,
      And let us, without staying,
    All in our gowns of green so gay
      Into the Park a-maying!

_68._ _Devotion_

Captain Tobias Hume’s _The First
Part of Airs, &c._, 1605

    Fain would I change that note
        To which fond Love hath charm’d me
    Long, long to sing by rote,
    Fancying that that harm’d me:
    Yet when this thought doth come,
    ‘Love is the perfect sum
        Of all delight,’
    I have no other choice
    Either for pen or voice
        To sing or write.

    O Love! they wrong thee much
    That say thy sweet is bitter,
    When thy rich fruit is such
    As nothing can be sweeter.
    Fair house of joy and bliss,
    Where truest pleasure is,
        I do adore thee:
    I know thee what thou art,
    I serve thee with my heart,
        And fall before thee.


_69._ _Since First I saw your Face_

Thomas Ford’s _Music of
Sundry Kinds_, 1607

    Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye;
    If now I be disdainèd I wish my heart had never known ye.
    What? I that loved and you that liked, shall we begin to wrangle?
    No, no, no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle.

    If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive me;
    Or if my hands had stray’d but a touch, then justly might you leave me.
    I ask’d you leave, you bade me love; is’t now a time to chide me?
    No, no, no, I’ll love you still what fortune e’er betide me.

    The Sun, whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no beholder,
    And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the bolder:
    Where beauty moves and wit delights and signs of kindness bind me,
    There, O there! where’er I go I’ll leave my heart behind me!


_70._ _There is a Lady sweet and kind_

Thomas Ford’s _Music of
Sundry Kinds_, 1607

    There is a Lady sweet and kind,
    Was never face so pleased my mind;
    I did but see her passing by,
    And yet I love her till I die.

    Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
    Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
    Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
    And yet I love her till I die.

    Cupid is wingèd and doth range,
    Her country so my love doth change:
    But change she earth, or change she sky,
    Yet will I love her till I die.

_71._ _Love not me for comely grace_

John Wilbye’s _Second Set of Madrigals_, 1609

    Love not me for comely grace,
        For my pleasing eye or face,
    Nor for any outward part,
    No, nor for a constant heart:
        For these 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!


_72._ _The Wakening_

John Attye’s _First Book of Airs_, 1622

    On a time the amorous Silvy
    Said to her shepherd, ‘Sweet, how do ye?
    Kiss me this once and then God be with ye,
                          My sweetest dear!
    Kiss me this once and then God be with ye,
    For now the morning draweth near.’
    With that, her fairest bosom showing,
    Op’ning her lips, rich perfumes blowing,
    She said, ‘Now kiss me and be going,
                          My sweetest dear!
    Kiss me this once and then be going,
    For now the morning draweth near.’
    With that the shepherd waked from sleeping,
    And spying where the day was peeping,
    He said, ‘Now take my soul in keeping,
                          My sweetest dear!
    Kiss me and take my soul in keeping,
    Since I must go, now day is near.’




NICHOLAS BRETON

1542-1626


_73._ _Phillida and Coridon_

    In the merry month of May,
    In a morn by break of day.
    Forth I walk’d by the wood-side
    When as May was in his pride:
    There I spièd all alone
    Phillida and Coridon.
    Much ado there was, God wot!
    He would love and she would not.
    She said, Never man was true;
    He said, None was false to you.
    He said, He had loved her long;
    She said, Love should have no wrong.
    Coridon would kiss her then;
    She said, Maids must kiss no men
    Till they did for good and all;
    Then she made the shepherd call
    All the heavens to witness truth
    Never loved a truer youth.
    Thus with many a pretty oath,
    Yea and nay, and faith and troth,
    Such as silly shepherds use
    When they will not Love abuse,
    Love, which had been long deluded,
    Was with kisses sweet concluded;
    And Phillida, with garlands gay,
    Was made the Lady of the May.




NICHOLAS BRETON?


_74._ _A Cradle Song_

_The Arbor of Amorous
Devices_, 1593-4

    Come little babe, come silly soul,
    Thy father’s shame, thy mother’s grief,
    Born as I doubt to all our dole,
    And to thyself unhappy chief:
        Sing lullaby, and lap it warm,
        Poor soul that thinks no creature harm.

    Thou little think’st and less dost know
    The cause of this thy mother’s moan;
    Thou want’st the wit to wail her woe,
    And I myself am all alone:
        Why dost thou weep? why dost thou wail?
        And know’st not yet what thou dost ail.

    Come, little wretch--ah, silly heart!
    Mine only joy, what can I more?
    If there be any wrong thy smart,
    That may the destinies implore:
        ’Twas I, I say, against my will,
        I wail the time, but be thou still.

    And dost thou smile? O, thy sweet face!
    Would God Himself He might thee see!--
    No doubt thou wouldst soon purchase grace,
    I know right well, for thee and me:
        But come to mother, babe, and play,
        For father false is fled away.

    Sweet boy, if it by fortune chance
    Thy father home again to send,
    If death do strike me with his lance,
    Yet mayst thou me to him commend:
        If any ask thy mother’s name,
        Tell how by love she purchased blame.

    Then will his gentle heart soon yield:
    I know him of a noble mind:
    Although a lion in the field,
    A lamb in town thou shalt him find:
        Ask blessing, babe, be not afraid,
        His sugar’d words hath me betray’d.

    Then mayst thou joy and be right glad;
    Although in woe I seem to moan,
    Thy father is no rascal lad,
    A noble youth of blood and bone:
        His glancing looks, if he once smile,
        Right honest women may beguile.

    Come, little boy, and rock asleep;
    Sing lullaby and be thou still;
    I, that can do naught else but weep,
    Will sit by thee and wail my fill:
        God bless my babe, and lullaby
        From this thy father’s quality.




SIR WALTER RALEIGH

1552-1618


_The Silent Lover_


_75._ _i_

    Passions are liken’d best to floods and streams:
      The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
    So, when affection yields discourse, it seems
      The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
    They that are rich in words, in words discover
    That they are poor in that which makes a lover.


_76._ _ii_

    Wrong not, sweet empress of my heart,
      The merit of true passion,
    With thinking that he feels no smart,
      That sues for no compassion.

    Silence in love bewrays more woe
      Than words, though ne’er so witty:
    A beggar that is dumb, you know,
      May challenge double pity.

    Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
      My true, though secret passion;
    He smarteth most that hides his smart,
      And sues for no compassion.


_77._ _His Pilgrimage_

    Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
      My staff of faith to walk upon,
    My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
      My bottle of salvation,
    My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
    And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

    Blood must be my body’s balmer;
      No other balm will there be given;
    Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
      Travelleth towards the land of heaven;
    Over the silver mountains,
    Where spring the nectar fountains;
          There will I kiss
          The bowl of bliss;
        And drink mine everlasting fill
        Upon every milken hill.
        My soul will be a-dry before;
        But, after, it will thirst no more.


_78._ _The Conclusion_

    Even such is Time, that takes in trust
      Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
    And pays us but with earth and dust;
      Who in the dark and silent grave,
    When we have wander’d all our ways,
    Shuts up the story of our days;
    But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
    My God shall raise me up, I trust.




EDMUND SPENSER

1552-1599


_79._ _Whilst it is prime_

    Fresh Spring, the herald of loves mighty king,
    In whose cote-armour richly are displayd
    All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring.
    In goodly colours gloriously arrayd--
    Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd,
    Yet in her winters bowre not well awake;
    Tell her the joyous time wil not be staid,
    Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take;
    Bid her therefore her selfe soone ready make,
    To wayt on Love amongst his lovely crew;
    Where every one, that misseth then her make,
    Shall be by him amearst with penance dew.
        Make hast, therefore, sweet love, whilest it is prime;
        For none can call againe the passèd time.

     _79._ make] mate.


_80._ _A Ditty_

_In praise of Eliza, Queen of the Shepherds_

    See where she sits upon the grassie greene,
          (O seemely sight!)
    Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene,
          And ermines white:
    Upon her head a Cremosin coronet
    With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set:
          Bay leaves betweene,
          And primroses greene,
    Embellish the sweete Violet.

    Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face
          Like Phœbe fayre?
    Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace,
          Can you well compare?
    The Redde rose medled with the White yfere,
    In either cheeke depeincten lively chere:
          Her modest eye,
          Her Majestie,
    Where have you seene the like but there?

    I see Calliope speede her to the place,
          Where my Goddesse shines;
    And after her the other Muses trace
          With their Violines.
    Bene they not Bay braunches which they do beare,
    All for Elisa in her hand to weare?
          So sweetely they play,
          And sing all the way,
    That it a heaven is to heare.

     medled] mixed. yfere] together.

    Lo, how finely the Graces can it foote
        To the Instrument:
    They dauncen deffly, and singen soote,
        In their meriment.
    Wants not a fourth Grace to make the daunce even?
    Let that rowme to my Lady be yeven.
        She shal be a Grace,
        To fyll the fourth place,
    And reigne with the rest in heaven.

    Bring hether the Pincke and purple Cullambine,
        With Gelliflowres;
    Bring Coronations, and Sops-in-wine
        Worne of Paramoures:
    Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies,
    And Cowslips, and Kingcups, and lovèd Lillies:
        The pretie Pawnce,
        And the Chevisaunce,
    Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice.

    Now ryse up, Elisa, deckèd as thou art
        In royall aray;
    And now ye daintie Damsells may depart
        Eche one her way.
    I feare I have troubled your troupes to longe:
    Let dame Elisa thanke you for her song:
        And if you come hether
        When Damsines I gether,
    I will part them all you among.

     soote] sweet. coronations] carnations. sops-in-wine] striped pinks.
     pawnce] pansy. chevisaunce] wallflower. flowre delice] iris.


_81._ _Prothalamion_

    Calme was the day, and through the trembling ayre
    Sweete-breathing Zephyrus did softly play
    A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
    Hot Titans beames, which then did glyster fayre;
    When I, (whom sullein care,
    Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay
    In Princes Court, and expectation vayne
    Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away,
    Like empty shaddowes, did afflict my brayne,)
    Walkt forth to ease my payne
    Along the shoare of silver streaming Themmes;
    Whose rutty Bancke, the which his River hemmes,
    Was paynted all with variable flowers,
    And all the meades adornd with daintie gemmes
    Fit to decke maydens bowres,
    And crowne their Paramours
    Against the Brydale day, which is not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.

    There, in a Meadow, by the Rivers side,
    A Flocke of Nymphes I chauncèd to espy,
    All lovely Daughters of the Flood thereby,
    With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde,
    As each had bene a Bryde;
    And each one had a little wicker basket,
    Made of fine twigs, entraylèd curiously,
    In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
    And with fine Fingers cropt full feateously
    The tender stalkes on hye.
    Of every sort, which in that Meadow grew,
    They gathered some; the Violet, pallid blew,

    The little Dazie, that at evening closes,
    The virgin Lillie, and the Primrose trew,
    With store of vermeil Roses,
    To decke their Bridegromes posies
    Against the Brydale day, which was not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.

    With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe
    Come softly swimming downe along the Lee;
    Two fairer Birds I yet did never see;
    The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew,
    Did never whiter shew;
    Nor Jove himselfe, when he a Swan would be,
    For love of Leda, whiter did appeare;
    Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he,
    Yet not so white as these, nor nothing neare;
    So purely white they were,
    That even the gentle streame, the which them bare,
    Seem’d foule to them, and bad his billowes spare
    To wet their silken feathers, least they might
    Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre,
    And marre their beauties bright,
    That shone as heavens light,
    Against their Brydale day, which was not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.
    Eftsoones the Nymphes, which now had Flowers their fill,
    Ran all in haste to see that silver brood,
    As they came floating on the Christal Flood;
    Whom when they sawe, they stood amazèd still,
    Their wondring eyes to fill;
    Them seem’d they never saw a sight so fayre,
    Of Fowles, so lovely, that they sure did deeme
    Them heavenly borne, or to be that same payre
    Which through the Skie draw Venus silver Teeme;
    For sure they did not seeme
    To be begot of any earthly Seede,
    But rather Angels, or of Angels breede;
    Yet were they bred of Somers-heat, they say,
    In sweetest Season, when each Flower and weede
    The earth did fresh aray;
    So fresh they seem’d as day,
    Even as their Brydale day, which was not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.

    Then forth they all out of their baskets drew
    Great store of Flowers, the honour of the field,
    That to the sense did fragrant odours yield,
    All which upon those goodly Birds they threw
    And all the Waves did strew,
    That like old Peneus Waters they did seeme,
    When downe along by pleasant Tempes shore,
    Scattred with Flowres, through Thessaly they streeme,
    That they appeare, through Lillies plenteous store,
    Like a Brydes Chamber flore.
    Two of those Nymphes, meane while, two Garlands bound
    Of freshest Flowres which in that Mead they found,
    The which presenting all in trim Array,
    Their snowie Foreheads therewithall they crownd,
    Whil’st one did sing this Lay,
    Prepared against that Day,
    Against their Brydale day, which was not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.

    ‘Ye gentle Birdes! the worlds faire ornament,
    And heavens glorie, whom this happie hower
    Doth leade unto your lovers blisfull bower,
    Joy may you have, and gentle hearts content
    Of your loves couplement;
    And let faire Venus, that is Queene of love,
    With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you smile,
    Whose smile, they say, hath vertue to remove
    All Loves dislike, and friendships faultie guile
    For ever to assoile.
    Let endlesse Peace your steadfast hearts accord,
    And blessèd Plentie wait upon your bord;
    And let your bed with pleasures chast abound,
    That fruitfull issue may to you afford,
    Which may your foes confound,
    And make your joyes redound
    Upon your Brydale day, which is not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softlie, till I end my Song.’

    So ended she; and all the rest around
    To her redoubled that her undersong,
    Which said their brydale daye should not be long:
    And gentle Eccho from the neighbour ground
    Their accents did resound.
    So forth those joyous Birdes did passe along,
    Adowne the Lee, that to them murmurde low,
    As he would speake, but that he lackt a tong,
    Yet did by signes his glad affection show,
    Making his streame run slow.
    And all the foule which in his flood did dwell
    Gan flock about these twaine, that did excell
    The rest, so far as Cynthia doth shend
    The lesser starres. So they, enrangèd well,
    Did on those two attend,
    And their best service lend
    Against their wedding day, which was not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.


    At length they all to mery London came,
    To mery London, my most kyndly Nurse,
    That to me gave this Lifes first native sourse,
    Though from another place I take my name,
    An house of auncient fame:
    There when they came, whereas those bricky towres
    The which on Themmes brode agèd backe doe ryde,
    Where now the studious Lawyers have their bowers,
    There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde,
    Till they decayd through pride:
    Next whereunto there standes a stately place,
    Where oft I gaynèd giftes and goodly grace
    Of that great Lord, which therein wont to dwell,
    Whose want too well now feeles my freendles case;
    But ah! here fits not well
    Olde woes, but joyes, to tell
    Against the Brydale daye, which is not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.

    Yet therein now doth lodge a noble Peer,
    Great Englands glory, and the Worlds wide wonder,
    Whose dreadfull name late through all Spaine did thunder,
    And Hercules two pillors standing neere
    Did make to quake and feare:
    Faire branch of Honor, flower of Chevalrie!
    That fillest England with thy triumphes fame,
    Joy have thou of thy noble victorie,
    And endlesse happinesse of thine owne name
    That promiseth the same;
    That through thy prowesse, and victorious armes,
    Thy country may be freed from forraine harmes;
    And great Elisaes glorious name may ring
    Through al the world, fil’d with thy wide Alarmes,
    Which some brave muse may sing
    To ages following,
    Upon the Brydale day, which is not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly till I end my Song.

    From those high Towers this noble Lord issuing,
    Like Radiant Hesper, when his golden hayre
    In th’ Ocean billowes he hath bathèd fayre,
    Descended to the Rivers open vewing,
    With a great traine ensuing.
    Above the rest were goodly to bee seene
    Two gentle Knights of lovely face and feature,
    Beseeming well the bower of anie Queene,
    With gifts of wit, and ornaments of nature,
    Fit for so goodly stature,
    That like the twins of Jove they seem’d in sight,
    Which decke the Bauldricke of the Heavens bright;
    They two, forth pacing to the Rivers side,
    Received those two faire Brides, their Loves delight;
    Which, at th’ appointed tyde,
    Each one did make his Bryde
    Against their Brydale day, which is not long:
      Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.


_82._ _Epithalamion_

    Ye learnèd sisters, which have oftentimes
    Beene to me ayding, others to adorne,
    Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes,
    That even the greatest did not greatly scorne
    To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes,
    But joyèd in theyr praise;
    And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne,
    Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did rayse,
    Your string could soone to sadder tenor turne,
    And teach the woods and waters to lament
    Your dolefull dreriment:
    Now lay those sorrowfull complaints aside;
    And, having all your heads with girlands crownd,
    Helpe me mine owne loves prayses to resound;
    Ne let the same of any be envide:
    So Orpheus did for his owne bride!
    So I unto my selfe alone will sing;
    The woods shall to me answer, and my Eccho ring.

    Early, before the worlds light-giving lampe
    His golden beame upon the hils doth spred,
    Having disperst the nights unchearefull dampe,
    Doe ye awake; and, with fresh lusty-hed,
    Go to the bowre of my belovèd love,
    My truest turtle dove;
    Bid her awake; for Hymen is awake,
    And long since ready forth his maske to move,
    With his bright Tead that flames with many a flake,
    And many a bachelor to waite on him,
    In theyr fresh garments trim.
    Bid her awake therefore, and soone her dight,
    For lo! the wishèd day is come at last,
    That shall, for all the paynes and sorrowes past,
    Pay to her usury of long delight:
    And, whylest she doth her dight,
    Doe ye to her of joy and solace sing,
    That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

    Bring with you all the Nymphes that you can heare
    Both of the rivers and the forrests greene,

     tead] torch.

    And of the sea that neighbours to her neare:
    Al with gay girlands goodly wel beseene.
    And let them also with them bring in hand
    Another gay girland
    For my fayre love, of lillyes and of roses,
    Bound truelove wize, with a blew silke riband.
    And let them make great store of bridale poses,
    And let them eeke bring store of other flowers,
    To deck the bridale bowers.
    And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread,
    For feare the stones her tender foot should wrong,
    Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along,
    And diapred lyke the discolored mead.
    Which done, doe at her chamber dore awayt,
    For she will waken strayt;
    The whiles doe ye this song unto her sing,
    The woods shall to you answer, and your Eccho ring.

    Ye Nymphes of Mulla, which with carefull heed
    The silver scaly trouts doe tend full well,
    And greedy pikes which use therein to feed;
    (Those trouts and pikes all others doo excell;)
    And ye likewise, which keepe the rushy lake,
    Where none doo fishes take;
    Bynd up the locks the which hang scatterd light,
    And in his waters, which your mirror make,
    Behold your faces as the christall bright,
    That when you come whereas my love doth lie,
    No blemish she may spie.
    And eke, ye lightfoot mayds, which keepe the deere,
    That on the hoary mountayne used to towre;
    And the wylde wolves, which seeke them to devoure,
    With your steele darts doo chace from comming neer;
    Be also present heere,

    To helpe to decke her, and to help to sing,
    That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

    Wake now, my love, awake! for it is time;
    The Rosy Morne long since left Tithones bed,
    All ready to her silver coche to clyme;
    And Phœbus gins to shew his glorious hed.
    Hark! how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies
    And carroll of Loves praise.
    The merry Larke hir mattins sings aloft;
    The Thrush replyes; the Mavis descant playes;
    The Ouzell shrills; the Ruddock warbles soft;
    So goodly all agree, with sweet consent,
    To this dayes merriment.
    Ah! my deere love, why doe ye sleepe thus long?
    When meeter were that ye should now awake,
    T’ awayt the comming of your joyous make,
    And hearken to the birds love-learnèd song,
    The deawy leaves among!
    Nor they of joy and pleasance to you sing,
    That all the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring.
    My love is now awake out of her dreames,
    And her fayre eyes, like stars that dimmèd were
    With darksome cloud, now shew theyr goodly beams
    More bright then Hesperus his head doth rere.
    Come now, ye damzels, daughters of delight,
    Helpe quickly her to dight:
    But first come ye fayre houres, which were begot
    In Joves sweet paradice of Day and Night;
    Which doe the seasons of the yeare allot,
    And al, that ever in this world is fayre,
    Doe make and still repayre:

     ruddock] redbreast.

    And ye three handmayds of the Cyprian Queene,
    The which doe still adorne her beauties pride,
    Helpe to addorne my beautifullest bride:
    And, as ye her array, still throw betweene
    Some graces to be seene;
    And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing,
    The whiles the woods shal answer, and your eccho ring.

    Now is my love all ready forth to come:
    Let all the virgins therefore well awayt:
    And ye fresh boyes, that tend upon her groome,
    Prepare your selves; for he is comming strayt.
    Set all your things in seemely good aray,
    Fit for so joyfull day:
    The joyfulst day that ever sunne did see.
    Faire Sun! shew forth thy favourable ray,
    And let thy lifull heat not fervent be,
    For feare of burning her sunshyny face,
    Her beauty to disgrace.
    O fayrest Phœbus! father of the Muse!
    If ever I did honour thee aright,
    Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight,
    Doe not thy servants simple boone refuse;
    But let this day, let this one day, be myne;
    Let all the rest be thine.
    Then I thy soverayne prayses loud wil sing,
    That all the woods shal answer, and theyr eccho ring.

    Harke! how the Minstrils gin to shrill aloud
    Their merry Musick that resounds from far,
    The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling Croud,
    That well agree withouten breach or jar.

     croud] violin.

    But, most of all, the Damzels doe delite
    When they their tymbrels smyte,
    And thereunto doe daunce and carrol sweet,
    That all the sences they doe ravish quite;
    The whyles the boyes run up and downe the street,
    Crying aloud with strong confusèd noyce,
    As if it were one voyce,
    Hymen, iö Hymen, Hymen, they do shout;
    That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrill
    Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill;
    To which the people standing all about,
    As in approvance, doe thereto applaud,
    And loud advaunce her laud;
    And evermore they Hymen, Hymen sing,
    That al the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring.

    Loe! where she comes along with portly pace,
    Lyke Phœbe, from her chamber of the East,
    Arysing forth to run her mighty race,
    Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best.
    So well it her beseemes, that ye would weene
    Some angell she had beene.
    Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,
    Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene,
    Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre;
    And, being crownèd with a girland greene,
    Seeme lyke some mayden Queene.
    Her modest eyes, abashèd to behold
    So many gazers as on her do stare,
    Upon the lowly ground affixèd are;
    Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,
    But blush to heare her prayses sung so loud,
    So farre from being proud.
    Nathlesse doe ye still loud her prayses sing,
    That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

    Tell me, ye merchants daughters, did ye see
    So fayre a creature in your towne before;
    So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
    Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store?
    Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright,
    Her forehead yvory white,
    Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,
    Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte,
    Her brest like to a bowle of creame uncrudded,
    Her paps lyke lyllies budded,
    Her snowie necke lyke to a marble towre;
    And all her body like a pallace fayre,
    Ascending up, with many a stately stayre,
    To honors seat and chastities sweet bowre.
    Why stand ye still ye virgins in amaze,
    Upon her so to gaze,
    Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,
    To which the woods did answer, and your eccho ring?

    But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,
    The inward beauty of her lively spright,
    Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree,
    Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,
    And stand astonisht lyke to those which red
    Medusaes mazeful hed.
    There dwels sweet love, and constant chastity,
    Unspotted fayth, and comely womanhood,
    Regard of honour, and mild modesty;
    There vertue raynes as Queene in royal throne,
    And giveth lawes alone,
    The which the base affections doe obay,
    And yeeld theyr services unto her will;
    Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may
    Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill.
    Had ye once seene these her celestial threasures,
    And unrevealèd pleasures,
    Then would ye wonder, and her prayses sing,
    That al the woods should answer, and your echo ring.

    Open the temple gates unto my love,
    Open them wide that she may enter in,
    And all the postes adorne as doth behove,
    And all the pillours deck with girlands trim,
    For to receyve this Saynt with honour dew,
    That commeth in to you.
    With trembling steps, and humble reverence,
    She commeth in, before th’ Almighties view;
    Of her ye virgins learne obedience,
    When so ye come into those holy places,
    To humble your proud faces:
    Bring her up to th’ high altar, that she may
    The sacred ceremonies there partake,
    The which do endlesse matrimony make;
    And let the roring Organs loudly play
    The praises of the Lord in lively notes;
    The whiles, with hollow throates,
    The Choristers the joyous Antheme sing,
    That al the woods may answere, and their eccho ring.

    Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
    Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,
    And blesseth her with his two happy hands,
    How the red roses flush up in her cheekes,
    And the pure snow, with goodly vermill stayne
    Like crimsin dyde in grayne:
    That even th’ Angels, which continually
    About the sacred Altare doe remaine,
    Forget their service and about her fly,
    Ofte peeping in her face, that seems more fayre,
    The more they on it stare.
    But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,
    Are governèd with goodly modesty,
    That suffers not one looke to glaunce awry,
    Which may let in a little thought unsownd.
    Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand,
    The pledge of all our band!
    Sing, ye sweet Angels, Alleluya sing,
    That all the woods may answere, and your eccho ring.

    Now al is done: bring home the bride againe;
    Bring home the triumph of our victory:
    Bring home with you the glory of her gaine;
    With joyance bring her and with jollity.
    Never had man more joyfull day then this,
    Whom heaven would heape with blis,
    Make feast therefore now all this live-long day;
    This day for ever to me holy is.
    Poure out the wine without restraint or stay,
    Poure not by cups, but by the belly full,
    Poure out to all that wull,
    And sprinkle all the postes and wals with wine,
    That they may sweat, and drunken be withall.
    Crowne ye God Bacchus with a coronall,
    And Hymen also crowne with wreathes of vine;
    And let the Graces daunce unto the rest,
    For they can doo it best:
    The whiles the maydens doe theyr carroll sing,
    To which the woods shall answer, and theyr eccho ring.


    Ring ye the bels, ye yong men of the towne,
    And leave your wonted labors for this day:
    This day is holy; doe ye write it downe,
    That ye for ever it remember may.
    This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight,
    With Barnaby the bright,
    From whence declining daily by degrees,
    He somewhat loseth of his heat and light,
    When once the Crab behind his back he sees.
    But for this time it ill ordainèd was,
    To chose the longest day in all the yeare,
    And shortest night, when longest fitter weare:
    Yet never day so long, but late would passe.
    Ring ye the bels, to make it weare away,
    And bonefiers make all day;
    And daunce about them, and about them sing,
    That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

    Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
    And lende me leave to come unto my love?
    How slowly do the houres theyr numbers spend?
    How slowly does sad Time his feathers move?
    Hast thee, O fayrest Planet, to thy home,
    Within the Westerne fome:
    Thy tyrèd steedes long since have need of rest.
    Long though it be, at last I see it gloome,
    And the bright evening-star with golden creast
    Appeare out of the East.
    Fayre childe of beauty! glorious lampe of love!
    That all the host of heaven in rankes doost lead,
    And guydest lovers through the nights sad dread,
    How chearefully thou lookest from above,
    And seemst to laugh atweene thy twinkling light,
    As joying in the sight
    Of these glad many, which for joy doe sing,
    That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring!

    Now ceasse, ye damsels, your delights fore-past;
    Enough it is that all the day was youres:
    Now day is doen, and night is nighing fast,
    Now bring the Bryde into the brydall boures.
    The night is come, now soon her disaray,
    And in her bed her lay;
    Lay her in lillies and in violets,
    And silken courteins over her display,
    And odourd sheetes, and Arras coverlets.
    Behold how goodly my faire love does ly,
    In proud humility!
    Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took
    In Tempe, lying on the flowry gras,
    Twixt sleepe and wake, after she weary was,
    With bathing in the Acidalian brooke.
    Now it is night, ye damsels may be gon,
    And leave my love alone,
    And leave likewise your former lay to sing:
    The woods no more shall answere, nor your echo ring.

    Now welcome, night! thou night so long expected,
    That long daies labour doest at last defray,
    And all my cares, which cruell Love collected,
    Hast sumd in one, and cancellèd for aye:
    Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,
    That no man may us see;
    And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,
    From feare of perrill and foule horror free.
    Let no false treason seeke us to entrap,
    Nor any dread disquiet once annoy
    The safety of our joy;
    But let the night be calme, and quietsome,
    Without tempestuous storms or sad afray:
    Lyke as when Jove with fayre Alcmena lay,
    When he begot the great Tirynthian groome:
    Or lyke as when he with thy selfe did lie
    And begot Majesty.
    And let the mayds and yong men cease to sing;
    Ne let the woods them answer nor theyr eccho ring.

    Let no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull teares,
    Be heard all night within, nor yet without:
    Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden feares,
    Breake gentle sleepe with misconceivèd dout.
    Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadfull sights,
    Make sudden sad affrights;
    Ne let house-fyres, nor lightnings helpelesse harmes,
    Ne let the Pouke, nor other evill sprights,
    Ne let mischivous witches with theyr charmes,
    Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence we see not,
    Fray us with things that be not:
    Let not the shriech Oule nor the Storke be heard,
    Nor the night Raven, that still deadly yels;
    Nor damnèd ghosts, cald up with mighty spels,
    Nor griesly vultures, make us once affeard:
    Ne let th’ unpleasant Quyre of Frogs still croking
    Make us to wish theyr choking.
    Let none of these theyr drery accents sing;
    Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring.

    But let stil Silence trew night-watches keepe,
    That sacred Peace may in assurance rayne,
    And tymely Sleep, when it is tyme to sleepe,
    May poure his limbs forth on your pleasant playne;
    The whiles an hundred little wingèd loves,
    Like divers-fethered doves,
    Shall fly and flutter round about your bed,
    And in the secret darke, that none reproves,
    Their prety stealthes shal worke, and snares shal spread
    To filch away sweet snatches of delight,
    Conceald through covert night.
    Ye sonnes of Venus, play your sports at will!
    For greedy pleasure, carelesse of your toyes,
    Thinks more upon her paradise of joyes,
    Then what ye do, albe it good or ill.
    All night therefore attend your merry play,
    For it will soone be day:
    Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing;
    Ne will the woods now answer, nor your Eccho ring.

    Who is the same, which at my window peepes?
    Or whose is that faire face that shines so bright?
    Is it not Cinthia, she that never sleepes,
    But walkes about high heaven al the night?
    O! fayrest goddesse, do thou not envy
    My love with me to spy:
    For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought,
    And for a fleece of wooll, which privily
    The Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought,
    His pleasures with thee wrought.
    Therefore to us be favorable now;
    And sith of wemens labours thou hast charge,
    And generation goodly dost enlarge,
    Encline thy will t’effect our wishfull vow,
    And the chast wombe informe with timely seed
    That may our comfort breed:
    Till which we cease our hopefull hap to sing;
    Ne let the woods us answere, nor our Eccho ring.


    And thou, great Juno! which with awful might
    The lawes of wedlock still dost patronize;
    And the religion of the faith first plight
    With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize;
    And eeke for comfort often callèd art
    Of women in their smart;
    Eternally bind thou this lovely band,
    And all thy blessings unto us impart.
    And thou, glad Genius! in whose gentle hand
    The bridale bowre and geniall bed remaine,
    Without blemish or staine;
    And the sweet pleasures of theyr loves delight
    With secret ayde doest succour and supply,
    Till they bring forth the fruitfull progeny;
    Send us the timely fruit of this same night.
    And thou, fayre Hebe! and thou, Hymen free!
    Grant that it may so be.
    Til which we cease your further prayse to sing;
    Ne any woods shall answer, nor your Eccho ring.

    And ye high heavens, the temple of the gods,
    In which a thousand torches flaming bright
    Doe burne, that to us wretched earthly clods
    In dreadful darknesse lend desirèd light
    And all ye powers which in the same remayne,
    More then we men can fayne!
    Poure out your blessing on us plentiously,
    And happy influence upon us raine,
    That we may raise a large posterity,
    Which from the earth, which they may long possesse
    With lasting happinesse,
    Up to your haughty pallaces may mount;
    And, for the guerdon of theyr glorious merit,
    May heavenly tabernacles there inherit,
    Of blessèd Saints for to increase the count.
    So let us rest, sweet love, in hope of this,
    And cease till then our tymely joyes to sing:
    The woods no more us answer, nor our eccho ring!

    _Song! made in lieu of many ornaments._
    _With which my love should duly have been dect,_
    _Which cutting off through hasty accidents,_
    _Ye would not stay your dew time to expect_
    _But promist both to recompens;_
    _Be unto her a goodly ornament,_
    _And for short time an endlesse moniment._


_83._ _From ‘Daphnaïda’_

_An Elegy_

    SHE fell away in her first ages spring,
    Whil’st yet her leafe was greene, and fresh her rinde,
    And whil’st her braunch faire blossomes foorth did bring,
    She fell away against all course of kinde.
    For age to dye is right, but youth is wrong;
    She fel away like fruit blowne downe with winde.
    Weepe, Shepheard! weepe, to make my undersong.

    Yet fell she not as one enforst to dye,
    Ne dyde with dread and grudging discontent,
    But as one toyld with travaile downe doth lye,
    So lay she downe, as if to sleepe she went,
    And closde her eyes with carelesse quietnesse;
    The whiles soft death away her spirit hent,
    And soule assoyld from sinfull fleshlinesse.


    How happie was I when I saw her leade
    The Shepheards daughters dauncing in a rownd!
    How trimly would she trace and softly tread
    The tender grasse, with rosie garland crownd!
    And when she list advance her heavenly voyce,
    Both Nymphes and Muses nigh she made astownd,
    And flocks and shepheards causèd to rejoyce.

    But now, ye Shepheard lasses! who shall lead
    Your wandring troupes, or sing your virelayes?
    Or who shall dight your bowres, sith she is dead
    That was the Lady of your holy-dayes?
    Let now your blisse be turnèd into bale,
    And into plaints convert your joyous playes,
    And with the same fill every hill and dale.

    For I will walke this wandring pilgrimage,
    Throughout the world from one to other end,
    And in affliction wast my better age:
    My bread shall be the anguish of my mind,
    My drink the teares which fro mine eyes do raine,
    My bed the ground that hardest I may finde;
    So will I wilfully increase my paine.

    Ne sleepe (the harbenger of wearie wights)
    Shall ever lodge upon mine ey-lids more;
    Ne shall with rest refresh my fainting sprights,
    Nor failing force to former strength restore:
    But I will wake and sorrow all the night
    With Philumene, my fortune to deplore;
    With Philumene, the partner of my plight.

    And ever as I see the starres to fall,
    And under ground to goe to give them light
    Which dwell in darknes, I to minde will call
    How my fair Starre (that shinde on me so bright)
    Fell sodainly and faded under ground;
    Since whose departure, day is turnd to night,
    And night without a Venus starre is found.

    And she, my love that was, my Saint that is,
    When she beholds from her celestiall throne
    (In which shee joyeth in eternall blis)
    My bitter penance, will my case bemone,
    And pitie me that living thus doo die;
    For heavenly spirits have compassion
    On mortall men, and rue their miserie.

    So when I have with sorowe satisfide
    Th’ importune fates, which vengeance on me seeke,
    And th’ heavens with long languor pacifide,
    She, for pure pitie of my sufferance meeke,
    Will send for me; for which I daylie long:
    And will till then my painful penance eeke.
    Weep, Shepheard! weep, to make my undersong!


_84._ _Easter_

    MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
    Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
    And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
    Captivity thence captive, us to win:
    This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
    And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
    Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
    May live for ever in felicity!
    And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
    May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
    And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
    With love may one another entertayne!
      So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
    --Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.




JOHN LYLY

1553-1606


_85._ _Cards and Kisses_

    Cupid and my Campaspe play’d
    At cards for kisses--Cupid paid:
    He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
    His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;
    Loses them too; then down he throws
    The coral of his lips, the rose
    Growing on’s cheek (but none knows how);
    With these, the crystal of his brow,
    And then the dimple of his chin:
    All these did my Campaspe win.
    At last he set her both his eyes--
    She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
      O Love! has she done this for thee?
      What shall, alas! become of me?


_86._ _Spring’s Welcome_

    WHAT bird so sings, yet so does wail?
    O ’tis the ravish’d nightingale.
    _Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu!_ she cries,
    And still her woes at midnight rise.
    Brave prick-song! Who is’t now we hear?
    None but the lark so shrill and clear;
    Now at heaven’s gate she claps her wings,
    The morn not waking till she sings.
    Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat
    Poor robin redbreast tunes his note!
    Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing
    _Cuckoo!_ to welcome in the spring!
    _Cuckoo!_ to welcome in the spring!




ANTHONY MUNDAY

1553-1633


_87._ _Beauty Bathing_

    BEAUTY sat bathing by a spring,
      Where fairest shades did hide her;
    The winds blew calm, the birds did sing,
      The cool streams ran beside her.
    My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye
      To see what was forbidden:
    But better memory said Fie;
      So vain desire was chidden--
                  Hey nonny nonny O!
                  Hey nonny nonny!

    Into a slumber then I fell,
      And fond imagination
    Seemèd to see, but could not tell,
      Her feature or her fashion:
    But ev’n as babes in dreams do smile,
      And sometimes fall a-weeping,
    So I awaked as wise that while
      As when I fell a-sleeping.




SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

1554-86


_88._ _The Bargain_

    My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
      But just exchange one for another given:
    I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
      There never was a better bargain driven:
          My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

    His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
      My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
    He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
      I cherish his because in me it bides:
          My true love hath my heart, and I have his.


_89._ _Song_

    Who hath his fancy pleasèd
      With fruits of happy sight,
    Let here his eyes be raisèd
      On Nature’s sweetest light;
    A light which doth dissever
      And yet unite the eyes,
    A light which, dying never,
      Is cause the looker dies.

    She never dies, but lasteth
      In life of lover’s heart;
    He ever dies that wasteth
      In love his chiefest part:
    Thus is her life still guarded
      In never-dying faith;
    Thus is his death rewarded,
      Since she lives in his death.


    Look then, and die! The pleasure
      Doth answer well the pain:
    Small loss of mortal treasure,
      Who may immortal gain!
    Immortal be her graces,
      Immortal is her mind;
    They, fit for heavenly places--
      This, heaven in it doth bind.

    But eyes these beauties see not,
      Nor sense that grace descries;
    Yet eyes deprivèd be not
      From sight of her fair eyes--
    Which, as of inward glory
      They are the outward seal,
    So may they live still sorry,
      Which die not in that weal.

    But who hath fancies pleasèd
      With fruits of happy sight,
    Let here his eyes be raisèd
      On Nature’s sweetest light!


_90._ _Voices at the Window_

    _Who is it that, this dark night,_
      _Underneath my window plaineth?_
    It is one who from thy sight
      Being, ah, exiled, disdaineth
    Every other vulgar light.

    _Why, alas, and are you he?_
      _Be not yet those fancies changèd?_
    Dear, when you find change in me,
      Though from me you be estrangèd,
    Let my change to ruin be.


    _Well, in absence this will die:_
      _Leave to see, and leave to wonder._
    Absence sure will help, if I
     Can learn how myself to sunder
    From what in my heart doth lie.

    _But time will these thoughts remove;_
      _Time doth work what no man knoweth._
    Time doth as the subject prove:
      With time still the affection groweth
    In the faithful turtle-dove.

    _What if you new beauties see?_
      _Will not they stir new affection?_
    I will think they pictures be
      (Image-like, of saints’ perfection)
    Poorly counterfeiting thee.

    _But your reason’s purest light_
      _Bids you leave such minds to nourish._
    Dear, do reason no such spite!
      Never doth thy beauty flourish
    More than in my reason’s sight.

     _90._ leave] cease.


_91._ _Philomela_

    The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
      Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
    While late-bare Earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,
      Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making;
            And mournfully bewailing,
            Her throat in tunes expresseth
            What grief her breast oppresseth,
    For Tereus’ force on her chaste will prevailing.


      _O Philomela fair, O take some gladness_
      _That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness!_
          _Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth;_
      _Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth._

    Alas! she hath no other cause of anguish
      But Tereus’ love, on her by strong hand wroken;
    Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish,
      Full womanlike complains her will was broken
          But I, who, daily craving,
          Cannot have to content me,
          Have more cause to lament me,
    Since wanting is more woe than too much having.

      _O Philomela fair, O take some gladness_
      _That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness!_
          _Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth;_
      _Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth._


_92._ _The Highway_

    Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be,
    And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,
    Tempers her words to trampling horses’ feet
    More oft than to a chamber-melody,--
    Now blessèd you bear onward blessèd me
    To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet;
    My Muse and I must you of duty greet
    With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully;
    Be you still fair, honour’d by public heed;
    By no encroachment wrong’d, nor time forgot;
    Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed;
    And that you know I envy you no lot
      Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,
      Hundreds of years you Stella’s feet may kiss!


_93._ _His Lady’s Cruelty_

    With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies!
    How silently, and with how wan a face!
    What! may it be that even in heavenly place
    That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
    Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
    Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case:
    I read it in thy looks; thy languish’d grace
    To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
    Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
    Is constant love deem’d there but want of wit?
    Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
    Do they above love to be loved, and yet
      Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
      Do they call ‘virtue’ there--ungratefulness?


_94._ _Sleep_

    Come, Sleep; O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,
    The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
    The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,
    Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low;
    With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
    Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw:
    O make in me those civil wars to cease;
    I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
    Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
    A chamber deaf to noise and blind of light,
    A rosy garland and a weary head;
    And if these things, as being thine by right,
      Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
      Livelier than elsewhere, Stella’s image see.

     _94._ prease] press.


_95._ _Splendidis longum valedico Nugis_

    Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,
    And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things!
    Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
    Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.
    Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
    To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be;
    Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light
    That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
    O take fast hold! let that light be thy guide
    In this small course which birth draws out to death,
    And think how evil becometh him to slide
    Who seeketh Heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
      Then farewell, world! thy uttermost I see:
      Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me!




FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE

1554-1628


_96._ _Myra_

    I, with whose colours Myra dress’d her head,
      I, that ware posies of her own hand-making,
    I, that mine own name in the chimneys read
      By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking:
    Must I look on, in hope time coming may
    With change bring back my turn again to play?

    I, that on Sunday at the church-stile found
      A garland sweet with true-love-knots in flowers,
    Which I to wear about mine arms was bound
      That each of us might know that all was ours:
    Must I lead now an idle life in wishes,
    And follow Cupid for his loaves and fishes?

     _96._ chimneys] _cheminées_, chimney-screens of tapestry work.

    I, that did wear the ring her mother left,
      I, for whose love she gloried to be blamèd,
    I, with whose eyes her eyes committed theft,
      I, who did make her blush when I was namèd:
    Must I lose ring, flowers, blush, theft, and go naked,
    Watching with sighs till dead love be awakèd?

    Was it for this that I might Myra see
      Washing the water with her beauty’s white?
    Yet would she never write her love to me.
      Thinks wit of change when thoughts are in delight?
    Mad girls may safely love as they may leave;
    No man can _print_ a kiss: lines may deceive.

     _96._ deceive] betray.




THOMAS LODGE

1556?-1625


_97._ _Rosalind’s Madrigal_

    Love in my bosom like a bee
          Doth suck his sweet:
    Now with his wings he plays with me,
          Now with his feet.
    Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
    His bed amidst my tender breast;
    My kisses are his daily feast,
    And yet he robs me of my rest:
          Ah! wanton, will ye?

    And if I sleep, then percheth he
          With pretty flight,
    And makes his pillow of my knee
          The livelong night.
    Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;
    He music plays if so I sing;
    He lends me every lovely thing,
    Yet cruel he my heart doth sting:
          Whist, wanton, still ye!

    Else I with roses every day
          Will whip you hence,
    And bind you, when you long to play,
          For your offence.
    I’ll shut mine eyes to keep you in;
    I’ll make you fast it for your sin;
    I’ll count your power not worth a pin.
    --Alas! what hereby shall I win
          If he gainsay me?

    What if I beat the wanton boy
          With many a rod?
    He will repay me with annoy,
          Because a god.
    Then sit thou safely on my knee;
    Then let thy bower my bosom be;
    Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee;
    O Cupid, so thou pity me,
          Spare not, but play thee!


_98._ _Phillis_ I

    My Phillis hath the morning sun
      At first to look upon her;
    And Phillis hath morn-waking birds
      Her risings still to honour.
    My Phillis hath prime-feather’d flowers,
      That smile when she treads on them;
    And Phillis hath a gallant flock,
      That leaps since she doth own them.
    But Phillis hath too hard a heart,
      Alas that she should have it!
    It yields no mercy to desert,
      Nor grace to those that crave it.


_99._ _Phillis_ 2

    Love guards the roses of thy lips
      And flies about them like a bee;
    If I approach he forward skips,
      And if I kiss he stingeth me.

    Love in thine eyes doth build his bower,
      And sleeps within their pretty shine;
    And if I look the boy will lower,
      And from their orbs shoot shafts divine.

    Love works thy heart within his fire,
      And in my tears doth firm the same;
    And if I tempt it will retire,
      And of my plaints doth make a game.

    Love, let me cull her choicest flowers;
      And pity me, and calm her eye;
    Make soft her heart, dissolve her lowers
      Then will I praise thy deity.

    But if thou do not, Love, I’ll truly serve her
    In spite of thee, and by firm faith deserve her.


_100._ _Rosaline_

    Like to the clear in highest sphere
      Where all imperial glory shines,
    Of selfsame colour is her hair
      Whether unfolded or in twines:
          Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
    Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
      Resembling heaven by every wink;
    The gods do fear whenas they glow,
      And I do tremble when I think
          Heigh ho, would she were mine!

    Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
      That beautifies Aurora’s face,
    Or like the silver crimson shroud
      That Phœbus’ smiling looks doth grace.
          Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
    Her lips are like two budded roses
      Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh,
    Within whose bounds she balm encloses
      Apt to entice a deity:
          Heigh ho, would she were mine!

    Her neck like to a stately tower
      Where Love himself imprison’d lies,
    To watch for glances every hour
      From her divine and sacred eyes:
          Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
    Her paps are centres of delight,
      Her breasts are orbs of heavenly frame,
    Where Nature moulds the dew of light
      To feed perfection with the same:
          Heigh ho, would she were mine!


    With orient pearl, with ruby red,
      With marble white, with sapphire blue,
    Her body every way is fed,
      Yet soft to touch and sweet in view:
          Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
    Nature herself her shape admires;
      The gods are wounded in her sight;
    And Love forsakes his heavenly fires
      And at her eyes his brand doth light:
          Heigh ho, would she were mine!

    Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan
      The absence of fair Rosaline,
    Since for a fair there’s fairer none,
      Nor for her virtues so divine:
          Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
    Heigh ho, my heart! would God that she were mine!




GEORGE PEELE

1558?-97


_101._ _Fair and Fair_

         _Œnone._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
                    As fair as any may be;
                  The fairest shepherd on our green,
                    A love for any lady.

         _Paris._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
                    As fair as any may be;
                  Thy love is fair for thee alone
                    And for no other lady.

         _Œnone._ My love is fair, my love is gay,
                  As fresh as bin the flowers in May
                  And of my love my roundelay,
                  My merry, merry, merry roundelay,
                    Concludes with Cupid’s curse,--
                  ‘They that do change old love for new
                    Pray gods they change for worse!’
    _Ambo Simul._ They that do change old love for new,
                    Pray gods they change for worse!

         _Œnone._ Fair and fair, etc.
         _Paris._ Fair and fair, etc.
                  Thy love is fair, etc.
         _Œnone._ My love can pipe, my love can sing,
                  My love can many a pretty thing,
                  And of his lovely praises ring
                  My merry, merry, merry roundelays
                    Amen to Cupid’s curse,--
                  ‘They that do change,’ etc.
         _Paris._ They that do change, etc.
          _Ambo._ Fair and fair, etc.


_102._ _A Farewell to Arms_

(TO QUEEN ELIZABETH)

    His golden locks Time hath to silver turn’d;
      O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!
    His youth ’gainst time and age hath ever spurn’d,
      But spurn’d in vain; youth waneth by increasing:
    Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;
    Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

    His helmet now shall make a hive for bees;
      And, lovers’ sonnets turn’d to holy psalms,
    A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
      And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms:
    But though from court to cottage he depart,
    His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart.


    And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
      He’ll teach his swains this carol for a song,--
    ‘Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well,
      Curst be the souls that think her any wrong.’
    Goddess, allow this agèd man his right
    To be your beadsman now that was your knight.




ROBERT GREENE

1560-92


_103._ _Samela_

    Like to Diana in her summer weed,
      Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,
            Goes fair Samela.
    Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed
      When wash’d by Arethusa faint they lie,
            Is fair Samela.
    As fair Aurora in her morning grey,
      Deck’d with the ruddy glister of her love
            Is fair Samela;
    Like lovely Thetis on a calmèd day
      Whenas her brightness Neptune’s fancy move,
            Shines fair Samela.

    Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams,
      Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory
            Of fair Samela;
    Her cheeks like rose and lily yield forth gleams;
      Her brows bright arches framed of ebony.
            Thus fair Samela
    Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,
      And Juno in the show of majesty
            (For she’s Samela!),
    Pallas in wit,--all three, if you well view,
      For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity,
            Yield to Samela.


_104._ _Fawnia_

    Ah! were she pitiful as she is fair,
    Or but as mild as she is seeming so,
    Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
    Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.
    Ah! were her heart relenting as her hand,
    That seems to melt even with the mildest touch,
    Then knew I where to seat me in a land
    Under wide heavens, but yet there is not such.
    So as she shows she seems the budding rose,
    Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower;
    Sovran of beauty, like the spray she grows;
    Compass’d she is with thorns and canker’d flower.
      Yet were she willing to be pluck’d and worn,
      She would be gather’d, though she grew on thorn.

    Ah! when she sings, all music else be still,
    For none must be comparèd to her note;
    Ne’er breathed such glee from Philomela’s bill,
    Nor from the morning-singer’s swelling throat.
    Ah! when she riseth from her blissful bed
    She comforts all the world as doth the sun,
    And at her sight the night’s foul vapour’s fled;
    When she is set the gladsome day is done.
      O glorious sun, imagine me the west,
      Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast!


_105._ _Sephestia’s Lullaby_

    Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
    When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
          Mother’s wag, pretty boy,
          Father’s sorrow, father’s joy;
          When thy father first did see
          Such a boy by him and me,
          He was glad, I was woe;
          Fortune changèd made him so,
          When he left his pretty boy,
          Last his sorrow, first his joy.

    Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
    When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
          Streaming tears that never stint,
          Like pearl-drops from a flint,
          Fell by course from his eyes,
          That one another’s place supplies;
          Thus he grieved in every part,
          Tears of blood fell from his heart,
          When he left his pretty boy,
          Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.

    Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
    When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.
          The wanton smiled, father wept,
          Mother cried, baby leapt;
          More he crow’d, more we cried,
          Nature could not sorrow hide:
          He must go, he must kiss
          Child and mother, baby bliss,
          For he left his pretty boy,
          Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.

    Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
    When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.




ALEXANDER HUME

1560-1609


_106._ _A Summer Day_

    O perfect Light, which shaid away
      The darkness from the light,
    And set a ruler o’er the day,
      Another o’er the night--

    Thy glory, when the day forth flies,
      More vively doth appear
    Than at mid day unto our eyes
      The shining sun is clear.

    The shadow of the earth anon
      Removes and drawis by,
    While in the East, when it is gone,
      Appears a clearer sky.

    Which soon perceive the little larks,
      The lapwing and the snipe,
    And tune their songs, like Nature’s clerks,
      O’er meadow, muir, and stripe.

    Our hemisphere is polisht clean,
      And lighten’d more and more,
    While everything is clearly seen
      Which seemit dim before:

    Except the glistering astres bright,
      Which all the night were clear,
    Offuskit with a greater light
      No longer do appear.

     shaid] parted. stripe] rill. offuskit] darkened.

    The golden globe incontinent
      Sets up his shining head,
    And o’er the earth and firmament
      Displays his beams abread.

    For joy the birds with boulden throats
      Against his visage sheen
    Take up their kindly musick notes
      In woods and gardens green.

    The dew upon the tender crops,
      Like pearlis white and round,
    Or like to melted silver drops,
      Refreshis all the ground.

    The misty reek, the clouds of rain,
      From tops of mountains skails,
    Clear are the highest hills and plain,
      The vapours take the vales.

    The ample heaven of fabrick sure
      In cleanness does surpass
    The crystal and the silver pure,
      Or clearest polisht glass.

    The time so tranquil is and still
      That nowhere shall ye find,
    Save on a high and barren hill,
      An air of peeping wind.

    All trees and simples, great and small,
      That balmy leaf do bear,
    Than they were painted on a wall
      No more they move or steir.

     boulden] swollen. sheen] bright. skails] clears. simples] herbs.

    Calm is the deep and purple sea,
      Yea, smoother than the sand;
    The waves that weltering wont to be
      Are stable like the land.

    So silent is the cessile air
      That every cry and call
    The hills and dales and forest fair
      Again repeats them all.

    The flourishes and fragrant flowers,
      Through Phoebus’ fostering heat,
    Refresht with dew and silver showers
      Cast up an odour sweet.

    The cloggit busy humming bees,
      That never think to drone,
    On flowers and flourishes of trees
      Collect their liquor brown.

    The Sun, most like a speedy post
      With ardent course ascends;
    The beauty of the heavenly host
      Up to our zenith tends.

    The burning beams down from his face
      So fervently can beat,
    That man and beast now seek a place
      To save them from the heat.

    The herds beneath some leafy tree
      Amidst the flowers they lie;
    The stable ships upon the sea
      Tend up their sails to dry.

     cessile] yielding, ceasing. flourishes] blossoms.

    With gilded eyes and open wings
      The cock his courage shows;
    With claps of joy his breast he dings,
      And twenty times he crows.

    The dove with whistling wings so blue
      The winds can fast collect;
    Her purple pens turn many a hue
      Against the sun direct.

    Now noon is went; gone is midday,
      The heat doth slake at last;
    The sun descends down West away,
      For three of clock is past.

    The rayons of the sun we see
      Diminish in their strength;
    The shade of every tower and tree
      Extendit is in length.

    Great is the calm, for everywhere
      The wind is setting down;
    The reek throws right up in the air
      From every tower and town.

    The gloming comes; the day is spent;
      The sun goes out of sight;
    And painted is the occident
      With purple sanguine bright.

    Our west horizon circular
      From time the sun be set
    Is all with rubies, as it were,
      Or roses red o’erfret.


    What pleasure were to walk and see,
      Endlong a river clear,
    The perfect form of every tree
      Within the deep appear.

    O then it were a seemly thing,
      While all is still and calm,
    The praise of God to play and sing
      With cornet and with shalm!

    All labourers draw home at even,
      And can to other say,
    Thanks to the gracious God of heaven,
      Which sent this summer day.




GEORGE CHAPMAN

1560-1634


_107._ _Bridal Song_

    O come, soft rest of cares! come, Night!
      Come, naked Virtue’s only tire,
    The reapèd harvest of the light
      Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire.
        Love calls to war:
          Sighs his alarms,
        Lips his swords are,
          The field his arms.

    Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand
      On glorious Day’s outfacing face;
    And all thy crownèd flames command
      For torches to our nuptial grace.
        Love calls to war:
          Sighs his alarms,
        Lips his swords are,
          The field his arms.




ROBERT SOUTHWELL

1561-95


_108._ _Times go by Turns_

    The loppèd tree in time may grow again,
    Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
    The sorest wight may find release of pain,
    The driest soil suck in some moist’ning shower;
    Times go by turns and chances change by course,
    From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

    The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow,
    She draws her favours to the lowest ebb;
    Her tides hath equal times to come and go,
    Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web;
    No joy so great but runneth to an end,
    No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

    Not always fall of leaf nor ever spring,
    No endless night yet not eternal day;
    The saddest birds a season find to sing,
    The roughest storm a calm may soon allay:
    Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
    That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

    A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
    The net that holds no great, takes little fish;
    In some things all, in all things none are crost,
    Few all they need, but none have all they wish;
    Unmeddled joys here to no man befall:
    Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

     unmeddled] unmixed.


_109._ _The Burning Babe_

    As I in hoary winter’s night
      Stood shivering in the snow,
    Surprised I was with sudden heat
      Which made my heart to glow;
    And lifting up a fearful eye
      To view what fire was near,
    A pretty babe all burning bright
      Did in the air appear;
    Who, scorchèd with excessive heat,
      Such floods of tears did shed,
    As though His floods should quench His flames,
      Which with His tears were bred:
    ‘Alas!’ quoth He, ‘but newly born
      In fiery heats I fry,
    Yet none approach to warm their hearts
      Or feel my fire but I!

    ‘My faultless breast the furnace is;
      The fuel, wounding thorns;
    Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke;
      The ashes, shames and scorns;
    The fuel Justice layeth on,
      And Mercy blows the coals,
    The metal in this furnace wrought
      Are men’s defilèd souls:
    For which, as now on fire I am
      To work them to their good,
    So will I melt into a bath,
      To wash them in my blood.’
    With this He vanish’d out of sight
      And swiftly shrunk away,
    And straight I callèd unto mind
      That it was Christmas Day.




HENRY CONSTABLE

1562?-1613?


_110._ _On the Death of Sir Philip Sidney_

    Give pardon, blessèd soul, to my bold cries,
    If they, importune, interrupt thy song,
    Which now with joyful notes thou sing’st among
    The angel-quiristers of th’ heavenly skies.
    Give pardon eke, sweet soul, to my slow eyes,
    That since I saw thee now it is so long,
    And yet the tears that unto thee belong
    To thee as yet they did not sacrifice.
    I did not know that thou wert dead before;
    I did not feel the grief I did sustain;
    The greater stroke astonisheth the more;
    Astonishment takes from us sense of pain;
      I stood amazed when others’ tears begun,
      And now begin to weep when they have done.




SAMUEL DANIEL

1562-1619


_111._ _Love is a Sickness_

    LOVE is a sickness full of woes,
      All remedies refusing;
    A plant that with most cutting grows,
      Most barren with best using.
                      Why so?
    More we enjoy it, more it dies;
    If not enjoy’d, it sighing cries--
                          Heigh ho!

    Love is a torment of the mind,
      A tempest everlasting;
    And Jove hath made it of a kind
      Not well, nor full nor fasting.
                      Why so?
    More we enjoy it, more it dies;
    If not enjoy’d, it sighing cries--
                          Heigh ho!


_112._ _Ulysses and the Siren_

      _Siren._ Come, worthy Greek! Ulysses, come,
                 Possess these shores with me:
               The winds and seas are troublesome,
                 And here we may be free.
               Here may we sit and view their toil
                 That travail in the deep,
               And joy the day in mirth the while,
                 And spend the night in sleep.

    _Ulysses._ Fair Nymph, if fame or honour were
                 To be attain’d with ease,
               Then would I come and rest me there,
                 And leave such toils as these.
               But here it dwells, and here must I
                 With danger seek it forth:
               To spend the time luxuriously
                 Becomes not men of worth.

      _Siren._ Ulysses, O be not deceived
                 With that unreal name;
               This honour is a thing conceived,
                 And rests on others’ fame:
               Begotten only to molest
                 Our peace, and to beguile
               The best thing of our life--our rest,
                 And give us up to toil.


    _Ulysses._ Delicious Nymph, suppose there were
                 No honour nor report,
               Yet manliness would scorn to wear
                 The time in idle sport:
               For toil doth give a better touch
                 To make us feel our joy,
               And ease finds tediousness as much
                 As labour yields annoy.

      _Siren._ Then pleasure likewise seems the shore
                 Whereto tends all your toil,
               Which you forgo to make it more,
                 And perish oft the while.
               Who may disport them diversely
                 Find never tedious day,
               And ease may have variety
                 As well as action may.

    _Ulysses._ But natures of the noblest frame
                 These toils and dangers please;
               And they take comfort in the same
                 As much as you in ease;
               And with the thought of actions past
                 Are recreated still:
               When Pleasure leaves a touch at last
                 To show that it was ill.

      _Siren._ That doth _Opinion_ only cause
                 That’s out of _Custom_ bred,
               Which makes us many other laws
                 Than ever _Nature_ did.
               No widows wail for our delights,
                 Our sports are without blood;
               The world we see by warlike wights
                 Receives more hurt than good.


    _Ulysses._ But yet the state of things require
                 These motions of unrest:
               And these great Spirits of high desire
                 Seem born to turn them best:
               To purge the mischiefs that increase
                 And all good order mar:
               For oft we see a wicked peace
                 To be well changed for war.

      _Siren._ Well, well, Ulysses, then I see
                 I shall not have thee here:
               And therefore I will come to thee,
                 And take my fortune there.
               I must be won, that cannot win,
                 Yet lost were I not won;
               For beauty hath created been
                 T’ undo, or be undone.


_113._ _Beauty, Time, and Love_


SONNETS. I

    Fair is my Love and cruel as she’s fair;
    Her brow-shades frown, although her eyes are sunny,
    Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair,
    And her disdains are gall, her favours honey:
    A modest maid, deck’d with a blush of honour,
    Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;
    The wonder of all eyes that look upon her,
    Sacred on earth, design’d a Saint above.
    Chastity and Beauty, which were deadly foes,
    Live reconcilèd friends within her brow;
    And had she Pity to conjoin with those,
    Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?
      For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,
      My Muse had slept, and none had known my mind.


II

    My spotless love hovers with purest wings,
    About the temple of the proudest frame,
    Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things,
    Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame.
    My ambitious thoughts, confinèd in her face,
    Affect no honour but what she can give;
    My hopes do rest in limits of her grace;
    I weigh no comfort unless she relieve.
    For she, that can my heart imparadise,
    Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is;
    My Fortune’s wheel’s the circle of her eyes,
    Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss.
      All my life’s sweet consists in her alone;
      So much I love the most Unloving one.


III

    And yet I cannot reprehend the flight
    Or blame th’ attempt presuming so to soar;
    The mounting venture for a high delight
    Did make the honour of the fall the more.
    For who gets wealth, that puts not from the shore?
    Danger hath honour, great designs their fame;
    Glory doth follow, courage goes before;
    And though th’ event oft answers not the same--
    Suffice that high attempts have never shame.
    The mean observer, whom base safety keeps,
    Lives without honour, dies without a name,
    And in eternal darkness ever sleeps.--
      And therefore, _Delia_, ’tis to me no blot
      To have attempted, tho’ attain’d thee not.


IV

    When men shall find thy flow’r, thy glory, pass,
    And thou with careful brow, sitting alone,
    Receivèd hast this message from thy glass,
    That tells the truth and says that _All is gone_;
    Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad’st,
    Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining:
    I that have loved thee thus before thou fad’st--
    My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning.
    The world shall find this miracle in me,
    That fire can burn when all the matter’s spent:
    Then what my faith hath been thyself shalt see,
    And that thou wast unkind thou may’st repent.--
      Thou may’st repent that thou hast scorn’d my tears,
      When Winter snows upon thy sable hairs.


V

    Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew,
    Whose short refresh upon the tender green
    Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show,
    And straight ’tis gone as it had never been.
    Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish,
    Short is the glory of the blushing rose;
    The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish,
    Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose.
    When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years,
    Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth;
    And that, in Beauty’s Lease expired, appears
    The Date of Age, the Calends of our Death--
      But ah, no more!--this must not be foretold,
      For women grieve to think they must be old.


VI

    I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read
    Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;
    Flowers have time before they come to seed,
    And she is young, and now must sport the while.
    And sport, Sweet Maid, in season of these years,
    And learn to gather flowers before they wither;
    And where the sweetest blossom first appears,
    Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither.
    Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,
    And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise;
    Pity and smiles do best become the fair;
    Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise.
      Make me to say when all my griefs are gone,
      Happy the heart that sighed for such a one!


VII

    Let others sing of Knights and Paladines
    In agèd accents and untimely words,
    Paint shadows in imaginary lines,
    Which well the reach of their high wit records:
    But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyes
    Authentic shall my verse in time to come;
    When yet th’ unborn shall say, _Lo, where she lies!_
    _Whose beauty made him speak, that else was dumb!_
    These are the arcs, the trophies I erect,
    That fortify thy name against old age;
    And these thy sacred virtues must protect
    Against the Dark, and Time’s consuming rage.
      Though th’ error of my youth in them appear,
      Suffice, they show I lived, and loved thee dear.




MARK ALEXANDER BOYD

1563-1601


_114._ _Sonet_

    Fra bank to bank, fra wood to wood I rin,
      Ourhailit with my feeble fantasie;
      Like til a leaf that fallis from a tree,
    Or til a reed ourblawin with the win.

    Twa gods guides me: the ane of tham is blin,
      Yea and a bairn brocht up in vanitie;
      The next a wife ingenrit of the sea,
    And lichter nor a dauphin with her fin.

    Unhappy is the man for evermair
      That tills the sand and sawis in the air;
      But twice unhappier is he, I lairn,
    That feidis in his hairt a mad desire,
    And follows on a woman throw the fire,
      Led by a blind and teachit by a bairn.




JOSHUA SYLVESTER

1563-1618


_115._ _Ubique_

    Were I as base as is the lowly plain,
    And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
    Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain,
    Ascend to heaven in honour of my love.
    Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
    And you, my Love, as humble and as low
    As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
    Wheresoe’er you were, with you my love should go.
    Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,
    My love should shine on you like to the Sun,
    And look upon you with ten thousand eyes,
    Till heaven wax’d blind, and till the world were done.
      Wheresoe’er I am,--below, or else above you--
      Wheresoe’er you are, my heart shall truly love you.




MICHAEL DRAYTON

1563-1631


_116._ _To His Coy Love_

    I pray thee, leave, love me no more,
      Call home the heart you gave me!
    I but in vain that saint adore
      That can but will not save me.
    These poor half-kisses kill me quite--
      Was ever man thus servèd?
    Amidst an ocean of delight
      For pleasure to be starvèd?

    Show me no more those snowy breasts
      With azure riverets branchèd,
    Where, whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,
      Yet is my thirst not stanchèd;
    O Tantalus, thy pains ne’er tell!
      By me thou art prevented:
    ’Tis nothing to be plagued in Hell,
      But thus in Heaven tormented.

    Clip me no more in those dear arms,
      Nor thy life’s comfort call me,
    O these are but too powerful charms,
      And do but more enthral me!
    But see how patient I am grown
      In all this coil about thee:
    Come, nice thing, let my heart alone,
      I cannot live without thee!


_117._ _The Parting_

    Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part--
    Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
    And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
    That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
    Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
    And when we meet at any time again,
    Be it not seen in either of our brows
    That we one jot of former love retain.
    Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath,
    When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
    When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
    And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
     --Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
      From death to life thou might’st him yet recover.


_118._ _Sirena_

    Near to the silver _Trent_
      SIRENA dwelleth;
    She to whom Nature lent
      All that excelleth;
    By which the Muses late
      And the neat Graces
    Have for their greater state
      Taken their places;
    Twisting an anadem
      Wherewith to crown her,
    As it belong’d to them
      Most to renown her.
            _On thy bank,_
            _In a rank,_
            _Let thy swans sing her,_
          _And with their music_
              _Along let them bring her._

    _Tagus_ and _Pactolus_
      Are to thee debtor,
    Nor for their gold to us
      Are they the better:
    Henceforth of all the rest
      Be thou the River
    Which, as the daintiest,
      Puts them down ever.
    For as my precious one
      O’er thee doth travel,
    She to pearl paragon
      Turneth thy gravel.
                _On thy bank ..._

    Our mournful Philomel,
      That rarest tuner,
    Henceforth in Aperil
      Shall wake the sooner,
    And to her shall complain
      From the thick cover,
    Redoubling every strain
      Over and over:
    For when my Love too long
      Her chamber keepeth,
    As though it suffer’d wrong,
      The Morning weepeth.
                _On thy bank ..._


    Oft have I seen the Sun,
      To do her honour,
    Fix himself at his noon
      To look upon her;
    And hath gilt every grove,
      Every hill near her,
    With his flames from above
      Striving to cheer her:
    And when she from his sight
      Hath herself turnèd,
    He, as it had been night,
      In clouds hath mournèd.
                _On thy bank ..._

    The verdant meads are seen,
      When she doth view them,
    In fresh and gallant green
      Straight to renew them;
    And every little grass
      Broad itself spreadeth,
    Proud that this bonny lass
      Upon it treadeth:
    Nor flower is so sweet
      In this large cincture,
    But it upon her feet
      Leaveth some tincture.
                _On thy bank ..._

    The fishes in the flood,
      When she doth angle,
    For the hook strive a-good
      Them to entangle;
    And leaping on the land,
      From the clear water,
    Their scales upon the sand
      Lavishly scatter;
    Therewith to pave the mould
      Whereon she passes,
    So herself to behold
      As in her glasses.
                _On thy bank ..._

    When she looks out by night,
      The stars stand gazing,
    Like comets to our sight
      Fearfully blazing;
    As wond’ring at her eyes
      With their much brightness,
    Which so amaze the skies,
      Dimming their lightness.
    The raging tempests are calm
      When she speaketh,
    Such most delightsome balm
      From her lips breaketh.
                _On thy bank ..._

    In all our _Brittany_
      There’s not a fairer,
    Nor can you fit any
      Should you compare her.
    Angels her eyelids keep,
      All hearts surprising;
    Which look whilst she doth sleep
      Like the sun’s rising:
    She alone of her kind
      Knoweth true measure,
    And her unmatchèd mind
      Is heaven’s treasure.
                _On thy bank ..._


    Fair _Dove_ and _Darwen_ clear,
      Boast ye your beauties,
    To _Trent_ your mistress here
      Yet pay your duties:
    My Love was higher born
      Tow’rds the full fountains,
    Yet she doth moorland scorn
      And the _Peak_ mountains;
    Nor would she none should dream
      Where she abideth,
    Humble as is the stream
      Which by her slideth.
                _On thy bank ..._

    Yet my poor rustic Muse
      Nothing can move her,
    Nor the means I can use,
      Though her true lover:
    Many a long winter’s night
      Have I waked for her,
    Yet this my piteous plight
      Nothing can stir her.
    All thy sands, silver _Trent_,
      Down to the _Humber_,
    The sighs that I have spent
      Never can number.
            _On thy bank,_
            _In a rank,_
            _Let thy swans sing her,_
          _And with their music_
              _Along let them bring her._


_119._ _Agincourt_

    Fair stood the wind for France
    When we our sails advance,
    Nor now to prove our chance
        Longer will tarry;
    But putting to the main,
    At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
    With all his martial train
        Landed King Harry.

    And taking many a fort,
    Furnish’d in warlike sort,
    Marcheth tow’rds Agincourt
        In happy hour;
    Skirmishing day by day
    With those that stopp’d his way,
    Where the French gen’ral lay
        With all his power.

    Which, in his height of pride,
    King Henry to deride,
    His ransom to provide
        Unto him sending;
    Which he neglects the while
    As from a nation vile,
    Yet with an angry smile
        Their fall portending.

    And turning to his men,
    Quoth our brave Henry then,
    ‘Though they to one be ten
        Be not amazèd:
    Yet have we well begun;
    Battles so bravely won
    Have ever to the sun
        By fame been raisèd.

    ‘And for myself (quoth he)
    This my full rest shall be:
    England ne’er mourn for me
        Nor more esteem me:
    Victor I will remain
    Or on this earth lie slain,
    Never shall she sustain
        Loss to redeem me.

    ‘Poitiers and Cressy tell,
    When most their pride did swell,
    Under our swords they fell:
        No less our skill is
    Than when our grandsire great,
    Claiming the regal seat,
    By many a warlike feat
        Lopp’d the French lilies.’

    The Duke of York so dread
    The eager vaward led;
    With the main Henry sped
        Among his henchmen.
    Excester had the rear,
    A braver man not there;
    O Lord, how hot they were
        On the false Frenchmen!

    They now to fight are gone,
    Armour on armour shone,
    Drum now to drum did groan,
        To hear was wonder;
    That with the cries they make
    The very earth did shake:
    Trumpet to trumpet spake,
        Thunder to thunder.

    Well it thine age became,
    O noble Erpingham,
    Which didst the signal aim
        To our hid forces!
    When from a meadow by,
    Like a storm suddenly
    The English archery
        Stuck the French horses.

    With Spanish yew so strong,
    Arrows a cloth-yard long
    That like to serpents stung,
        Piercing the weather;
    None from his fellow starts,
    But playing manly parts,
    And like true English hearts
        Stuck close together.

    When down their bows they threw,
    And forth their bilbos drew,
    And on the French they flew,
        Not one was tardy;
    Arms were from shoulders sent,
    Scalps to the teeth were rent,
    Down the French peasants went--
        Our men were hardy.

    This while our noble king,
    His broadsword brandishing,

     bilbos] swords, from Bilboa.

    Down the French host did ding
        As to o’erwhelm it;
    And many a deep wound lent,
    His arms with blood besprent,
    And many a cruel dent
        Bruisèd his helmet.

    Gloster, that duke so good,
    Next of the royal blood,
    For famous England stood
        With his brave brother;
    Clarence, in steel so bright,
    Though but a maiden knight,
    Yet in that furious fight
        Scarce such another.

    Warwick in blood did wade,
    Oxford the foe invade,
    And cruel slaughter made
        Still as they ran up;
    Suffolk his axe did ply,
    Beaumont and Willoughby
    Bare them right doughtily,
        Ferrers and Fanhope.

    Upon Saint Crispin’s Day
    Fought was this noble fray,
    Which fame did not delay
        To England to carry.
    O when shall English men
    With such acts fill a pen?
    Or England breed again
        Such a King Harry?


_120._ _To the Virginian Voyage_

    You brave heroic minds
      Worthy your country’s name,
        That honour still pursue;
        Go and subdue!
    Whilst loitering hinds
      Lurk here at home with shame.

    Britons, you stay too long:
      Quickly aboard bestow you,
        And with a merry gale
        Swell your stretch’d sail
    With vows as strong
      As the winds that blow you.

    Your course securely steer,
      West and by south forth keep!
        Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals
        When Eolus scowls
    You need not fear;
      So absolute the deep.

    And cheerfully at sea
      Success you still entice
        To get the pearl and gold,
        And ours to hold
    _Virginia,_
      Earth’s only paradise.

    Where nature hath in store
      Fowl, venison, and fish,
        And the fruitfull’st soil
        Without your toil
    Three harvests more,
      All greater than your wish.


    And the ambitious vine
      Crowns with his purple mass
        The cedar reaching high
        To kiss the sky,
    The cypress, pine,
      And useful sassafras.

    To whom the Golden Age
      Still nature’s laws doth give,
        No other cares attend,
        But them to defend
    From winter’s rage,
      That long there doth not live.

    When as the luscious smell
      Of that delicious land
        Above the seas that flows
        The clear wind throws,
    Your hearts to swell
      Approaching the dear strand;

    In kenning of the shore
      (Thanks to God first given)
        O you the happiest men,
        Be frolic then!
    Let cannons roar,
      Frighting the wide heaven.

    And in regions far,
      Such heroes bring ye forth
        As those from whom we came;
        And plant our name
    Under that star
      Not known unto our North.


    And as there plenty grows
      Of laurel everywhere--
        Apollo’s sacred tree--
        You it may see
    A poet’s brows
      To crown, that may sing there.

    Thy _Voyages_ attend,
      Industrious Hakluyt,
        Whose reading shall inflame
        Men to seek fame,
    And much commend
      To after times thy wit.




CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

1564-93


_121._ _The Passionate Shepherd to His Love_

    Come live with me and be my Love,
    And we will all the pleasures prove
    That hills and valleys, dales and fields
    Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

    And we will sit upon the rocks,
    And see the shepherds feed their flocks
    By shallow rivers, to whose falls
    Melodious birds sing madrigals.

    And I will make thee beds of roses
    And a thousand fragrant posies;
    A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
    Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.


    A gown made of the finest wool
    Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
    Fair-linèd slippers for the cold,
    With buckles of the purest gold.

    A belt of straw and ivy-buds
    With coral clasps and amber studs:
    And if these pleasures may thee move,
    Come live with me and be my Love.

    The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
    For thy delight each May morning:
    If these delights thy mind may move,
    Then live with me and be my Love.


_122._ _Her Reply_

(WRITTEN BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH)

    If all the world and love were young,
    And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
    These pretty pleasures might me move
    To live with thee and be thy Love.

    But Time drives flocks from field to fold;
    When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
    And Philomel becometh dumb;
    The rest complains of cares to come.

    The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
    To wayward Winter reckoning yields:
    A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
    Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.


    Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
    Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
    Soon break, soon wither--soon forgotten,
    In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

    Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds,
    Thy coral clasps and amber studs,--
    All these in me no means can move
    To come to thee and be thy Love.

    But could youth last, and love still breed,
    Had joys no date, nor age no need,
    Then these delights my mind might move
    To live with thee and be thy Love.




WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1564-1616


_123._ _Silvia_

    Who is Silvia? What is she?
      That all our swains commend her?
    Holy, fair, and wise is she;
      The heaven such grace did lend her,
    That she might admirèd be.

    Is she kind as she is fair?
      For beauty lives with kindness:
    Love doth to her eyes repair,
      To help him of his blindness;
    And, being help’d, inhabits there.

    Then to Silvia let us sing,
      That Silvia is excelling;
    She excels each mortal thing
      Upon the dull earth dwelling:
    To her let us garlands bring.


_124._ _The Blossom_

    On a day--alack the day!--
    Love, whose month is ever May,
    Spied a blossom passing fair
    Playing in the wanton air:
    Through the velvet leaves the wind
    All unseen ’gan passage find;
    That the lover, sick to death,
    Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.
    Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
    Air, would I might triumph so!
    But, alack, my hand is sworn
    Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
    Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
    Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
    Do not call it sin in me
    That I am forsworn for thee;
    Thou for whom e’en Jove would swear
    Juno but an Ethiop were;
    And deny himself for Jove,
    Turning mortal for thy love.


_Spring and Winter_

_125._ _i_

    When daisies pied and violets blue,
      And lady-smocks all silver-white,
    And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
      Do paint the meadows with delight,
    The cuckoo then, on every tree,
    Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
                Cuckoo!
    Cuckoo, cuckoo!--O word of fear,
    Unpleasing to a married ear!

    When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
      And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
    When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
      And maidens bleach their summer smocks
    The cuckoo then, on every tree,
    Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
                Cuckoo!
    Cuckoo, cuckoo!--O word of fear,
    Unpleasing to a married ear!


_126._ _ii_

    When icicles hang by the wall,
      And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
    And Tom bears logs into the hall,
      And milk comes frozen home in pail,
    When blood is nipp’d, and ways be foul,
    Then nightly sings the staring owl,
                To-whit!
    To-who!--a merry note.
    While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

    When all aloud the wind doth blow,
      And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
    And birds sit brooding in the snow,
      And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
    When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
    Then nightly sings the staring owl,
                To-whit!
    To-who!--a merry note,
    While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

     _126._ keel] skim.


_Fairy Land_

_127._ _i_

      Over hill, over dale,
        Thorough bush, thorough brier,
      Over park, over pale,
        Thorough flood, thorough fire,
        I do wander everywhere.
        Swifter than the moonè’s sphere;
        And I serve the fairy queen,
        To dew her orbs upon the green:
        The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
        In their gold coats spots you see;
        Those be rubies, fairy favours,
        In those freckles live their savours:
      I must go seek some dew-drops here,
    And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.


_128._ _ii_

    You spotted snakes with double tongue,
      Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
    Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
      Come not near our fairy queen.

          Philomel, with melody,
          Sing in our sweet lullaby;
        Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
            Never harm,
            Nor spell nor charm,
          Come our lovely lady nigh;
          So, good night, with lullaby.

    Weaving spiders, come not here;
      Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence!
    Beetles black, approach not near;
      Worm nor snail, do no offence.

          Philomel, with melody,
          Sing in our sweet lullaby;
        Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!
          Never harm.
          Nor spell nor charm,
        Come our lovely lady nigh;
        So, good night, with lullaby.


_129._ _iii_

    Come unto these yellow sands,
      And then take hands:
    Court’sied when you have, and kiss’d,--
      The wild waves whist,--
    Foot it featly here and there;
    And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
          Hark, hark!
            Bow, wow,
          The watch-dogs bark.
            Bow, wow.
          Hark, hark! I hear
      The strain of strutting chanticleer
      Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!


_130._ _iv_

    Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
      In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
    There I couch when owls do cry.
    On the bat’s back I do fly
    After summer merrily:
      Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
      Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.


_131._ _v_

    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!


_132._ _Love_

           Tell me where is Fancy bred,
               Or in the heart or in the head?
           How begot, how nourishèd?
               Reply, reply.
           It is engender’d in the eyes,
           With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
           In the cradle where it lies.
               Let us all ring Fancy’s knell:
               I’ll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell.
    _All._ Ding, dong, bell.


_133._ _Sweet-and-Twenty_

    O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
      O, stay and hear! your true love’s coming,
      That can sing both high and low:
    Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
    Journeys end in lovers meeting,
      Every wise man’s son doth know.


    What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
    Present mirth hath present laughter;
      What’s to come is still unsure:
    In delay there lies no plenty;
    Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty!
      Youth’s a stuff will not endure.


_134._ _Dirge_

    Come away, come away, death,
      And in sad cypres let me be laid;
    Fly away, fly away, breath;
      I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
    My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
            O prepare it!
    My part of death, no one so true
            Did share it.

    Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
      On my black coffin let there be strown;
    Not a friend, not a friend greet
      My poor corse, where my bones shall be thrown:
    A thousand thousand sighs to save,
            Lay me, O, where
    Sad true lover never find my grave
            To weep there!

     _134._ cypres] crape.


_135._ _Under the Greenwood Tree_

_Amiens_ sings:

    Under the greenwood tree,
      Who loves to lie with me,
    And turn his merry note
    Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
    Come hither, come hither, come hither:
        Here shall he see
        No enemy
    But winter and rough weather.

      Who doth ambition shun,
      And loves to live i’ the sun,
      Seeking the food he eats,
      And pleased with what he gets,
    Come hither, come hither, come hither:
        Here shall he see
        No enemy
    But winter and rough weather.

_Jaques_ replies:

      If it do come to pass
      That any man turn ass,
      Leaving his wealth and ease
      A stubborn will to please,
    Ducdamè, ducdamè, ducdamè:
        Here shall he see
        Gross fools as he,
    An if he will come to me.


_136._ _Blow blow, thou Winter Wind_

    Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
    Thou art not so unkind
      As man’s ingratitude;
    Thy tooth is not so keen,
    Because thou art not seen,
      Although thy breath be rude.
    Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
              Then heigh ho, the holly!
              This life is most jolly.

            Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
            That dost not bite so nigh
              As benefits forgot:
            Though thou the waters warp,
            Thy sting is not so sharp
              As friend remember’d not.
    Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
              Then heigh ho, the holly!
              This life is most jolly.


_137._ _It was a Lover and his Lass_

    It was a lover and his lass,
      With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
    That o’er the green corn-field did pass,
      In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
    When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
    Sweet lovers love the spring.

    Between the acres of the rye,
      With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
    These pretty country folks would lie,
      In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
    When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
    Sweet lovers love the spring.

    This carol they began that hour,
      With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
    How that life was but a flower
      In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
    When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
    Sweet lovers love the spring.

    And, therefore, take the present time
      With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
    For love is crownèd with the prime
      In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
    When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
    Sweet lovers love the spring.


_138._ _Take, O take those Lips away_

    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!


_139._ _Aubade_

    Hark! hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
      And Phœbus ’gins arise,
    His steeds to water at those springs
      On chaliced flowers that lies;
    And winking Mary-buds begin
      To ope their golden eyes:
    With everything that pretty bin,
      My lady sweet, arise!
        Arise, arise!


_140._ _Fidele_

    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 finished joy and moan:
    All lovers young, all lovers must
    Consign to thee, and come to dust.

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


_141._ _Bridal Song_

    Roses, their sharp spines being gone,
    Not royal in their smells alone,
      But in their hue;
    Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
    Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
      And sweet thyme true;

    Primrose, firstborn child of Ver;
    Merry springtime’s harbinger,
      With her bells dim;
    Oxlips in their cradles growing,
    Marigolds on death-beds blowing,
      Larks’-heels trim;

    All dear Nature’s children sweet
    Lie ’fore bride and bridegroom’s feet,
      Blessing their sense!
    Not an angel of the air,
    Bird melodious or bird fair,
      Be absent hence!

    The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor
    The boding raven, nor chough hoar,
      Nor chattering pye,
    May on our bride-house perch or sing,
    Or with them any discord bring,
      But from it fly!

? or _John Fletcher_.


_142._ _Dirge of the Three Queens_

    URNS and odours bring away!
      Vapours, sighs, darken the day!
    Our dole more deadly looks than dying;
      Balms and gums and heavy cheers,
      Sacred vials fill’d with tears,
    And clamours through the wild air flying!

      Come, all sad and solemn shows,
      That are quick-eyed Pleasure’s foes!
      We convènt naught else but woes.

? or _John Fletcher_.

     _142._ dole] lamentation. convent] summon.


_143._ _Orpheus_

    Orpheus with his lute made trees
    And the mountain tops that freeze
      Bow themselves when he did sing:
    To his music plants and flowers
    Ever sprung; as sun and showers
      There had made a lasting spring.

    Every thing that heard him play,
    Even the billows of the sea,
      Hung their heads and then lay by.
    In sweet music is such art,
      Killing care and grief of heart
      Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

? or _John Fletcher_.


_144._ _The Phœnix and the Turtle_

    Let the bird of loudest lay
      On the sole Arabian tree,
      Herald sad and trumpet be,
    To whose sound chaste wings obey.

    But thou shrieking harbinger,
      Foul precurrer of the fiend,
      Augur of the fever’s end,
    To this troop come thou not near.

    From this session interdict
      Every fowl of tyrant wing
      Save the eagle, feather’d king:
    Keep the obsequy so strict.

    Let the priest in surplice white
      That defunctive music can,
      Be the death-divining swan,
    Lest the requiem lack his right.

    And thou, treble-dated crow,
      That thy sable gender mak’st
      With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
    ’Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

    Here the anthem doth commence:--
      Love and constancy is dead;
      Phœnix and the turtle fled
    In a mutual flame from hence.

    So they loved, as love in twain
      Had the essence but in one;
      Two distincts, division none;
    Number there in love was slain.

     can] knows.

    Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
      Distance, and no space was seen
      ’Twixt the turtle and his queen:
    But in them it were a wonder.

    So between them love did shine,
      That the turtle saw his right
      Flaming in the phœnix’ sight;
    Either was the other’s mine.

    Property was thus appall’d,
      That the self was not the same;
      Single nature’s double name
    Neither two nor one was call’d.

    Reason, in itself confounded,
      Saw division grow together;
      To themselves yet either neither;
    Simple were so well compounded,

    That it cried, ‘How true a twain
      Seemeth this concordant one!
      Love hath reason, reason none
    If what parts can so remain.’

    Whereupon it made this threne
      To the phœnix and the dove,
      Co-supremes and stars of love,
    As chorus to their tragic scene.


_THRENOS_

    Beauty, truth, and rarity,
    Grace in all simplicity,
    Here enclosed in cinders lie.


    Death is now the phœnix’ nest;
    And the turtle’s loyal breast
    To eternity doth rest,

    Leaving no posterity:
    ’Twas not their infirmity,
    It was married chastity.

    Truth may seem, but cannot be;
    Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
    Truth and beauty buried be.

    To this urn let those repair
    That are either true or fair;
    For these dead birds sigh a prayer.


_Sonnets_


_145._ _i_

    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 wanderest in his shade,
    When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
      So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
      So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


_146._ _ii_

    When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
    I all alone beweep my outcast state,
    And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
    And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
    Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
    Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
    Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
    With what I most enjoy contented least;
    Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising--
    Haply I think on thee: and then my state,
    Like to the Lark at break of day arising
    From sullen earth, sings hymns at Heaven’s gate;
      For thy sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings
      That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.


_147._ _iii_

    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 th’ 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-bemoanèd 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.


_148._ _iv_

    Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts
    Which I, by lacking, have supposèd dead;
    And there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts,
    And all those friends which I thought burièd.
    How many a holy and obsequious tear
    Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,
    As interest of the dead!--which now appear
    But things removed that hidden in thee lie.
    Thou art the grave where buried love doth live.
    Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone.
    Who all their parts of me to thee did give:
    --That due of many now is thine alone:
      Their images I loved I view in thee,
      And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.


_149._ _v_

    What is your substance, whereof are you made,
    That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
    Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
    And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
    Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
    Is poorly imitated after you;
    On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
    And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
    Speak of the spring and foison of the year,
    The one doth shadow of your beauty show.
    The other as your bounty doth appear;
    And you in every blessèd shape we know.
      In all external grace you have some part,
      But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

     _149._ foison] plenty.


_150._ _vi_

    O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
    By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
    The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
    For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
    The Canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
    As the perfumèd tincture of the Roses,
    Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
    When summer’s breath their maskèd buds discloses:
    But--for their virtue only is their show--
    They live unwoo’d and unrespected fade,
    Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so;
    Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
      And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
      When that shall vade, my verse distils your truth.


_151._ _vii_

    Being your slave, what should I do but tend
    Upon the hours and times of your desire?
    I have no precious time at all to spend,
    Nor services to do, till you require.
    Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
    Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
    Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
    When you have bid your servant once adieu;
    Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
    Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
    But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
    Save, where you are how happy you make those!
      So true a fool is love, that in your Will,
      Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.


_152._ _viii_

    That time of year thou may’st 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 perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong
      To love that well which thou must leave ere long.


_153._ _ix_

    Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
    And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
    The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
    My bonds in thee are all determinate.
    For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
    And for that riches where is my deserving?
    The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
    And so my patent back again is swerving.
    Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
    Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;
    So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
    Comes home again, on better judgment making.
      Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter
      In sleep a King; but waking, no such matter.


_154._ _x_

    Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
    Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross.
    Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
    And do not drop in for an after loss:
    Ah! do not, when my heart hath ’scaped this sorrow,
    Come in the rearward of a conquered woe;
    Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
    To linger out a purposed overthrow.
    If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
    When other petty griefs have done their spite,
    But in the onset come: so shall I taste
    At first the very worst of fortune’s might;
      And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
      Compared with loss of thee will not seem so!


_155._ _xi_

    They that have power to hurt and will do none,
    That do not do the thing they most do show,
    Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
    Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow--
    They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
    And husband nature’s riches from expense;
    They are the Lords and owners of their faces,
    Others, but stewards of their excellence.
    The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
    Though to itself it only live and die;
    But if that flower with base infection meet,
    The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
      For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
      Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.


_156._ _xii_

    How like a Winter hath my absence been
    From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
    What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
    What old December’s bareness everywhere!
    And yet this time removed was summer’s time;
    The teeming Autumn, big with rich increase,
    Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
    Like widow’d wombs after their Lord’s decease:
    Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
    But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
    For Summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
    And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
      Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
      That leaves look pale, dreading the Winter’s near.


_157._ _xiii_

    From you have I been absent in the spring,
    When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,
    Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
    That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
    Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
    Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
    Could make me any summer’s story tell,
    Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
    Nor did I wonder at the Lily’s white,
    Nor praise the deep vermilion in the Rose;
    They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
    Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
      Yet seem’d it Winter still, and, you away,
      As with your shadow I with these did play.


_158._ _xiv_

    My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming;
    I love not less, though less the show appear:
    That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming
    The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere.
    Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
    When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
    As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing
    And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
    Not that the summer is less pleasant now
    Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
    But that wild music burthens every bough,
    And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
      Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue,
      Because I would not dull you with my song.


_159._ _xv_

    To me, fair friend, you never can be old;
    For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
    Such seems your beauty still. Three Winters cold
    Have from the forests shook three Summers’ pride;
    Three beauteous springs to yellow Autumn turn’d
    In process of the seasons have I seen,
    Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
    Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green,
    Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
    Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
    So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
    Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
      For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
      Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.


_160._ _xvi_

    When in the chronicle of wasted time
    I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
    And beauty making beautiful old rime
    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 exprest
    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.


_161._ _xvii_

    O never say that I was false of heart,
    Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify!
    As easy might I from myself depart,
    As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
    That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
    Like him that travels I return again,
    Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
    So that myself bring water for my stain.
    Never believe, though in my nature reign’d
    All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
    That it could so prepost’rously be stain’d,
    To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
      For nothing this wide Universe I call,
      Save thou, my Rose; in it thou art my all.


_162._ _xviii_

    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-fixèd mark,
    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
    It is the star to every wand’ring 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.


_163._ _xix_

    Th’ expense of Spirit in a waste of shame
    Is lust in action; and till action, lust
    Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
    Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
    Enjoy’d no sooner but despisèd straight;
    Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had,
    Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
    On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
    Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
    Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
    A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
    Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
      All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
      To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.


_164._ _xx_

    Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth--
    My sinful earth these rebel powers array--
    Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
    Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
    Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
    Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
    Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
    Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
    Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
    And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
    Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
    Within be fed, without be rich no more:
      So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men;
      And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.




RICHARD ROWLANDS

1565-1630?


_165._ _Lullaby_

    Upon my lap my sovereign sits
    And sucks upon my breast;
    Meantime his love maintains my life
    And gives my sense her rest.
        Sing lullaby, my little boy,
        Sing lullaby, mine only joy!

    When thou hast taken thy repast,
    Repose, my babe, on me;
    So may thy mother and thy nurse
    Thy cradle also be.
        Sing lullaby, my little boy,
        Sing lullaby, mine only joy!


    I grieve that duty doth not work
    All that my wishing would;
    Because I would not be to thee
    But in the best I should.
        Sing lullaby, my little boy,
        Sing lullaby, mine only joy!

    Yet as I am, and as I may,
    I must and will be thine,
    Though all too little for thyself
    Vouchsafing to be mine.
        Sing lullaby, my little boy,
        Sing lullaby, mine only joy!




THOMAS NASHE

1567-1601


_166._ _Spring_

    Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king;
    Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
    Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing--
      Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

    The palm and may make country houses gay,
    Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
    And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay--
      Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

    The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
    Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
    In every street these tunes our ears do greet--
      Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
        Spring, the sweet Spring!


_167._ _In Time of Pestilence_

1593

    ADIEU, farewell earth’s bliss!
    This world uncertain is:
    Fond are life’s lustful joys,
    Death proves them all but toys.
    None from his darts can fly;
    I am sick, I must die--
          _Lord, have mercy on us!_

    Rich men, trust not in wealth,
    Gold cannot buy you health;
    Physic himself must fade;
    All things to end are made;
    The plague full swift goes by;
    I am sick, I must die--
          _Lord, have mercy on us!_

    Beauty is but a flower
    Which wrinkles will devour;
    Brightness falls from the air;
    Queens have died young and fair;
    Dust hath closed Helen’s eye;
    I am sick, I must die--
          _Lord, have mercy on us!_

    Strength stoops unto the grave,
    Worms feed on Hector brave;
    Swords may not fight with fate;
    Earth still holds ope her gate;
    _Come, come!_ the bells do cry;
    I am sick, I must die--
          _Lord, have mercy on us!_


    Wit with his wantonness
    Tasteth death’s bitterness;
    Hell’s executioner
    Hath no ears for to hear
    What vain art can reply;
    I am sick, I must die--
          _Lord, have mercy on us!_

    Haste therefore each degree
    To welcome destiny;
    Heaven is our heritage,
    Earth but a player’s stage.
    Mount we unto the sky;
    I am sick, I must die--
          _Lord, have mercy on us!_




THOMAS CAMPION

1567?-1619


_168._ _Cherry-Ripe_

    There is a garden in her face
      Where roses and white lilies blow;
    A heavenly paradise is that place,
      Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:
        There cherries grow which none may buy
        Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.

    Those cherries fairly do enclose
      Of orient pearl a double row,
    Which when her lovely laughter shows,
      They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow;
        Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy
        Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.


    Her eyes like angels watch them still;
      Her brows like bended bows do stand,
    Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill
      All that attempt with eye or hand
        Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
        Till ‘Cherry-ripe’ themselves do cry.


_169._ _Laura_

      Rose-cheek’d _Laura_, come;
    Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty’s
    Silent music, either other
            Sweetly gracing.

      Lovely forms do flow
    From concent divinely framèd:
    Heaven is music, and thy beauty’s
            Birth is heavenly.

      These dull notes we sing
    Discords need for helps to grace them;
    Only beauty purely loving
            Knows no discord;

      But still moves delight,
    Like clear springs renew’d by flowing,
    Ever perfect, ever in them-
            selves eternal.


_Devotion_

_170._ _i_

    Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!
      Though thou be black as night,
      And she made all of light,
    Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!


    Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth!
      Though here thou liv’st disgraced,
      And she in heaven is placed,
    Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!

    Follow those pure beams, whose beauty burneth!
      That so have scorchèd thee
      As thou still black must be,
    Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.

    Follow her, while yet her glory shineth!
      There comes a luckless night
      That will dim all her light;
    And this the black unhappy shade divineth.

    Follow still, since so thy fates ordainèd!
      The sun must have his shade,
      Till both at once do fade,--
    The sun still proud, the shadow still disdainèd.


_171._ _ii_

    Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet!
    Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!
    There, wrapt in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
    And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
    But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,
    Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne’er return again!

    All that I sung still to her praise did tend;
    Still she was first, still she my songs did end;
    Yet she my love and music both doth fly,
    The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy:
    Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight!
    It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight.


_172._ _Vobiscum est Iope_

    When thou must home to shades of underground,
    And there arrived, a new admirèd guest,
    The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
    White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
    To hear the stories of thy finish’d love
    From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;

    Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
    Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
    Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
    And all these triumphs for thy beauty’s sake:
    When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
    Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me!


_173._ _Hymn in Praise of Neptune_

    Of Neptune’s empire let us sing,
    At whose command the waves obey;
    To whom the rivers tribute pay,
    Down the high mountains sliding:
    To whom the scaly nation yields
    Homage for the crystal fields
        Wherein they dwell:
    And every sea-dog pays a gem
    Yearly out of his wat’ry cell
    To deck great Neptune’s diadem.

    The Tritons dancing in a ring
    Before his palace gates do make
    The water with their echoes quake,
    Like the great thunder sounding:
    The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill,
    And the sirens, taught to kill
        With their sweet voice,
    Make ev’ry echoing rock reply
    Unto their gentle murmuring noise
    The praise of Neptune’s empery.


_174._ _Winter Nights_

          Now winter nights enlarge
            The number of their hours,
          And clouds their storms discharge
            Upon the airy towers.
          Let now the chimneys blaze
            And cups o’erflow with wine;
          Let well-tuned words amaze
            With harmony divine.
          Now yellow waxen lights
            Shall wait on honey love,
    While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
            Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

          This time doth well dispense
            With lovers’ long discourse;
          Much speech hath some defence
            Though beauty no remorse.
          All do not all things well;
            Some measures comely tread,
          Some knotted riddles tell,
            Some poems smoothly read.
          The summer hath his joys,
            And winter his delights;
    Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
            They shorten tedious nights.


_175._ _Integer Vitae_

    The man of life upright,
      Whose guiltless heart is free
    From all dishonest deeds,
      Or thought of vanity;

    The man whose silent days
      In harmless joys are spent,
    Whom hopes cannot delude,
      Nor sorrow discontent;

    That man needs neither towers
      Nor armour for defence,
    Nor secret vaults to fly
      From thunder’s violence:

    He only can behold
      With unaffrighted eyes
    The horrors of the deep
      And terrors of the skies.

    Thus, scorning all the cares
      That fate or fortune brings,
    He makes the heaven his book,
      His wisdom heavenly things;

    Good thoughts his only friends,
      His wealth a well-spent age,
    The earth his sober inn
      And quiet pilgrimage.


_176._ _O come quickly!_

    Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
    Never tirèd pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
    Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast:
    O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!

    Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,
    Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
    Glory there the sun outshines; whose beams the Blessèd only see:
    O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!




JOHN REYNOLDS

16th Cent.


_177._ _A Nosegay_

    Say, crimson Rose and dainty Daffodil,
                With Violet blue;
    Since you have seen the beauty of my saint,
                And eke her view;
    Did not her sight (fair sight!) you lonely fill,
                With sweet delight
    Of goddess’ grace and angels’ sacred teint
                In fine, most bright?

    Say, golden Primrose, sanguine Cowslip fair,
                With Pink most fine;
    Since you beheld the visage of my dear,
                And eyes divine;

     _177._ teint] tint, hue.

    Did not her globy front, and glistering hair,
                With cheeks most sweet,
    So gloriously like damask flowers appear,
                The gods to greet?

    Say, snow-white Lily, speckled Gillyflower,
                With Daisy gay;
    Since you have viewed the Queen of my desire,
                In her array;
    Did not her ivory paps, fair Venus’ bower,
                With heavenly glee,
    A Juno’s grace, conjure you to require
                Her face to see?

    Say Rose, say Daffodil, and Violet blue,
                With Primrose fair,
    Since ye have seen my nymph’s sweet dainty face
                And gesture rare,
    Did not (bright Cowslip, blooming Pink) her view
                (White Lily) shine--
    (Ah, Gillyflower, ah Daisy!) with a grace
                Like stars divine?




SIR HENRY WOTTON

1568-1639


_178._ _Elizabeth 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 Dime 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.


_179._ _The Character of a Happy Life_

    How happy is he born and taught
    That serveth not another’s will;
    Whose armour is his honest thought,
    And simple truth his utmost skill!

    Whose passions not his masters are;
    Whose soul is still prepared for death,
    Untied unto the world by care
    Of public fame or private breath;

    Who envies none that chance doth raise,
    Nor vice; who never understood
    How deepest wounds are given by praise;
    Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
    Who hath his life from rumours freed;
    Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
    Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
    Nor ruin make oppressors great;

    Who God doth late and early pray
    More of His grace than gifts to lend;
    And entertains the harmless day
    With a religious book or friend;

    --This man is freed from servile bands
    Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
    Lord of himself, though not of lands,
    And having nothing, yet hath all.


_180._ _Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife_

    He first deceased; she for a little tried
    To live without him, liked it not, and died.




SIR JOHN DAVIES

1569-1626


_181._ _Man_

    I know my soul hath power to know all things,
    Yet she is blind and ignorant in all:
    I know I’m one of Nature’s little kings,
    Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.


    I know my life’s a pain and but a span;
    I know my sense is mock’d in everything;
    And, to conclude, I know myself a Man--
    Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.




SIR ROBERT AYTON

1570-1638


_182._ _To His Forsaken Mistress_

    I do confess thou’rt smooth and fair,
      And I might have gone near to love thee,
    Had I not found the slightest prayer
      That lips could move, had power to move thee;
    But I can let thee now alone
    As worthy to be loved by none.

    I do confess thou’rt sweet; yet find
      Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets,
    Thy favours are but like the wind
      That kisseth everything it meets:
    And since thou canst with more than one,
    Thou’rt worthy to be kiss’d by none.

    The morning rose that untouch’d stands
      Arm’d with her briers, how sweet she smells!
    But pluck’d and strain’d through ruder hands,
      Her sweets no longer with her dwells:
    But scent and beauty both are gone,
    And leaves fall from her, one by one.

    Such fate ere long will thee betide
      When thou hast handled been awhile,
    With sere flowers to be thrown aside;
      And I shall sigh, while some will smile,
    To see thy love to every one
    Hath brought thee to be loved by none.


_183._ _To an Inconstant One_

    I loved thee once; I’ll love no more--
      Thine be the grief as is the blame;
    Thou art not what thou wast before,
      What reason I should be the same?
        He that can love unloved again,
        Hath better store of love than brain:
      God send me love my debts to pay,
      While unthrifts fool their love away!

    Nothing could have my love o’erthrown
      If thou hadst still continued mine;
    Yea, if thou hadst remain’d thy own,
      I might perchance have yet been thine.
        But thou thy freedom didst recall
        That it thou might elsewhere enthral:
      And then how could I but disdain
      A captive’s captive to remain?

    When new desires had conquer’d thee
      And changed the object of thy will,
    It had been lethargy in me,
      Not constancy, to love thee still.
        Yea, it had been a sin to go
        And prostitute affection so:
      Since we are taught no prayers to say
      To such as must to others pray.


    Yet do thou glory in thy choice--
      Thy choice of his good fortune boast;
    I’ll neither grieve nor yet rejoice
      To see him gain what I have lost:
        The height of my disdain shall be
        To laugh at him, to blush for thee;
      To love thee still, but go no more
      A-begging at a beggar’s door.




BEN JONSON

1573-1637


_184._ _Hymn to Diana_

    Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
      Now the sun is laid to sleep,
    Seated in thy silver chair,
      State in wonted manner keep:
        Hesperus entreats thy light,
        Goddess excellently bright.

    Earth, let not thy envious shade
      Dare itself to interpose;
    Cynthia’s shining orb was made
      Heaven to clear when day did close:
        Bless us then with wishèd sight,
        Goddess excellently bright.

    Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
      And thy crystal-shining quiver;
    Give unto the flying hart
      Space to breathe, how short soever:
        Thou that mak’st a day of night--
        Goddess excellently bright.


_185._ _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!


_186._ _Simplex Munditiis_

    Still to be neat, still to be drest,
    As you were going to a feast;
    Still to be powder’d, still perfumed:
    Lady, it is to be presumed,
    Though art’s hid causes are not found,
    All is not sweet, all is not sound.

    Give me a look, give me a face
    That makes simplicity a grace;
    Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
    Such sweet neglect more taketh me
    Than all th’ adulteries of art;
    They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.


_187._ _The Shadow_

    Follow a shadow, it still flies you;
      Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
    So court a mistress, she denies you;
      Let her alone, she will court you.
        Say, are not women truly, then,
        Styled but the shadows of us men?

    At morn and even, shades are longest;
      At noon they are or short or none:
    So men at weakest, they are strongest,
      But grant us perfect, they’re not known.
        Say, are not women truly, then,
        Styled but the shadows of us men?


_188._ _The Triumph_

    See the Chariot at hand here of Love,
      Wherein my Lady rideth!
    Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
      And well the car Love guideth.
    As she goes, all hearts do duty
                Unto her beauty;
    And enamour’d do wish, so they might
                But enjoy such a sight,
    That they still were to run by her side,
    Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

    Do but look on her eyes, they do light
      All that Love’s world compriseth!
    Do but look on her hair, it is bright
      As Love’s star when it riseth!
    Do but mark, her forehead’s smoother
                Than words that soothe her;
    And from her arch’d brows such a grace
                Sheds itself through the face,
    As alone there triumphs to the life
    All the gain, all the good, of the elements’ strife.

    Have you seen but a bright lily grow
      Before rude hands have touch’d it?
    Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow
      Before the soil hath smutch’d it?
    Have you felt the wool of beaver,
                Or swan’s down ever?
    O have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier,
                Or the nard in the fire?
    Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
    O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!


_189._ _An Elegy_

    Though beauty be the mark of praise,
      And yours of whom I sing be such
      As not the world can praise too much,
    Yet ’tis your Virtue now I raise.

    A virtue, like allay so gone
      Throughout your form as, though that move
      And draw and conquer all men’s love,
    This subjects you to love of one.

    Wherein you triumph yet--because
      ’Tis of your flesh, and that you use
      The noblest freedom, not to choose
    Against or faith or honour’s laws.

     _189._ allay] alloy.

    But who should less expect from you?
      In whom alone Love lives again:
      By whom he is restored to men,
    And kept and bred and brought up true.

    His falling temples you have rear’d,
      The withered garlands ta’en away;
      His altars kept from that decay
    That envy wish’d, and nature fear’d:

    And on them burn so chaste a flame,
      With so much loyalty’s expense,
      As Love to acquit such excellence
    Is gone himself into your name.

    And you are he--the deity
      To whom all lovers are design’d
      That would their better objects find
    Among which faithful troop am I--

    Who as an off’ring at your shrine
      Have sung this hymn, and here entreat
      One spark of your diviner heat
    To light upon a love of mine.

    Which if it kindle not, but scant
      Appear, and that to shortest view;
      Yet give me leave to adore in you
    What I in her am grieved to want!


_190._ _A Farewell to the World_

    False world, good night! since thou hast brought
      That hour upon my morn of age;
    Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,
      My part is ended on thy stage.


    Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear
      As little as I hope from thee:
    I know thou canst not show nor bear
      More hatred than thou hast to me.

    My tender, first, and simple years
      Thou didst abuse and then betray;
    Since stir’d’st up jealousies and fears,
      When all the causes were away.

    Then in a soil hast planted me
      Where breathe the basest of thy fools;
    Where envious arts professèd be,
      And pride and ignorance the schools;

    Where nothing is examined, weigh’d,
      But as ’tis rumour’d, so believed;
    Where every freedom is betray’d,
      And every goodness tax’d or grieved.

    But what we’re born for, we must bear:
      Our frail condition it is such
    That what to all may happen here,
      If ’t chance to me, I must not grutch.

    Else I my state should much mistake
      To harbour a divided thought
    From all my kind--that, for my sake,
      There should a miracle be wrought.

    No, I do know that I was born
      To age, misfortune, sickness, grief:
    But I will bear these with that scorn
      As shall not need thy false relief.


    Nor for my peace will I go far,
      As wanderers do, that still do roam;
    But make my strengths, such as they are,
      Here in my bosom, and at home.


_191._ _The Noble Balm_

    High-spirited friend,
    I send nor balms nor cor’sives to your wound:
            Your fate hath found
    A gentler and more agile hand to tend
    The cure of that which is but corporal;
    And doubtful days, which were named critical,
            Have made their fairest flight
            And now are out of sight.
    Yet doth some wholesome physic for the mind
            Wrapp’d in this paper lie,
    Which in the taking if you misapply,
            You are unkind.

            Your covetous hand,
    Happy in that fair honour it hath gain’d,
            Must now be rein’d.
    True valour doth her own renown command
    In one full action; nor have you now more
    To do, than be a husband of that store.
            Think but how dear you bought
            This fame which you have caught:
    Such thoughts will make you more in love with truth.
            ’Tis wisdom, and that high,
    For men to use their fortune reverently,
            Even in youth.


_Epitaphs_

_i_

_192._ _On Elizabeth L. H._

    Wouldst thou hear what Man can say
    In a little? Reader, stay.
    Underneath this stone doth lie
    As much Beauty as could die:
    Which in life did harbour give
    To more Virtue than doth live.
    If at all she had a fault,
    Leave it buried in this vault.
    One name was _Elizabeth_,
    The other, let it sleep with death:
    Fitter, where it died, to tell
    Than that it lived at all. Farewell.


_ii_

_193._ _On Salathiel Pavy_

_A child of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel_

    Weep with me, all you that read
        This little story;
    And know, for whom a tear you shed
        Death’s self is sorry.
    ’Twas a child that so did thrive
        In grace and feature,
    As Heaven and Nature seem’d to strive
        Which own’d the creature.
    Years he number’d scarce thirteen
        When Fates turn’d cruel,
    Yet three fill’d zodiacs had he been
        The stage’s jewel;
    And did act (what now we moan)
        Old men so duly,
    As sooth the Parcae thought him one,
        He play’d so truly.
    So, by error, to his fate
        They all consented;
    But, viewing him since, alas, too late!
        They have repented;
    And have sought, to give new birth,
        In baths to steep him;
    But, being so much too good for earth,
        Heaven vows to keep him.


_194._ _A Part of an Ode_

_to the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that noble pair, Sir Lucius
Cary and Sir H. Morison_

          It is not growing like a tree
          In bulk, doth make man better be;
    Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
    To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
              A lily of a day
              Is fairer far in May,
          Although it fall and die that night;
          It was the plant and flower of light.
    In small proportions we just beauties see;
    And in short measures, life may perfect be.

          Call, noble _Lucius_, then for wine,
          And let thy looks with gladness shine:
    Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
    And think--nay, know--thy _Morison_’s not dead.
              He leap’d the present age,
              Possest with holy rage
          To see that bright eternal Day
          Of which we Priests and Poets say
    Such truths as we expect for happy men;
    And there he lives with memory--and Ben

    _Jonson_: who sung this of him, ere he went
              Himself to rest,
    Or tast a part of that full joy he meant
              To have exprest
          In this bright Asterism
          Where it were friendship’s schism--
    Were not his _Lucius_ long with us to tarry--
              To separate these twy
              Lights, the Dioscuri,
    And keep the one half from his _Harry_.
    But fate doth so alternate the design,
    Whilst that in Heav’n, this light on earth must shine.

          And shine as you exalted are!
          Two names of friendship, but one star:
    Of hearts the union: and those not by chance
    Made, or indenture, or leased out to advance
              The profits for a time.
              No pleasures vain did chime
          Of rimes or riots at your feasts,
          Orgies of drink or feign’d protests;
    But simple love of greatness and of good,
    That knits brave minds and manners more than blood.

    This made you first to know the _Why_
    _You liked_, then after, to apply
    That liking, and approach so one the t’other
    Till either grew a portion of the other:
              Each stylèd by his end
              The copy of his friend.
          You lived to be the great surnames
          And titles by which all made claims
    Unto the Virtue--nothing perfect done
    But as a _CARY_ or a _MORISON_.

    And such the force the fair example had
              As they that saw
    The good, and durst not practise it, were glad
              That such a law
          Was left yet to mankind,
          Where they might read and find
    Friendship indeed was written, not in words,
              And with the heart, not pen,
              Of two so early men,
    Whose lines her rules were and records:
    Who, ere the first down bloomed on the chin,
    Had sow’d these fruits, and got the harvest in.




JOHN DONNE

1573-1631


_195._ _Daybreak_

    Stay, O sweet, and do not rise!
      The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
    The day breaks not: it is my heart,
      Because that you and I must part.
          Stay! or else my joys will die
          And perish in their infancy.


_196._ _Song_

    Go and catch a falling star,
      Get with child a mandrake root,
    Tell me where all past years are,
      Or who cleft the Devil’s foot;
    Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
    Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
              And find
              What wind
    Serves to advance an honest mind.

    If thou be’st born to strange sights,
      Things invisible to see,
    Ride ten thousand days and nights
      Till Age snow white hairs on thee;
    Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me
    All strange wonders that befell thee,
              And swear
              No where
    Lives a woman true and fair.

    If thou find’st one, let me know;
      Such a pilgrimage were sweet,
    Yet do not; I would not go,
      Though at next door we might meet.
    Though she were true when you met her,
    And last till you write your letter,
              Yet she
              Will be
    False, ere I come, to two or three.


_197._

    _That Time and Absence proves_
    _Rather helps than hurts to loves_

    Absence, hear thou my protestation
      Against thy strength,
      Distance and length:
    Do what thou canst for alteration,
      For hearts of truest mettle
      Absence doth join and Time doth settle.

    Who loves a mistress of such quality,
      His mind hath found
      Affection’s ground
    Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
      To hearts that cannot vary
      Absence is present, Time doth tarry.

    My senses want their outward motion
      Which now within
      Reason doth win,
    Redoubled by her secret notion:
      Like rich men that take pleasure
      In hiding more than handling treasure.

    By Absence this good means I gain,
      That I can catch her
      Where none can watch her,
    In some close corner of my brain:
      There I embrace and kiss her,
      And so enjoy her and none miss her.


_198._ _The Ecstasy_

    Where, like a pillow on a bed,
      A pregnant bank swell’d up, to rest
    The violet’s reclining head,
      Sat we two, one another’s best.

    Our hands were firmly cèmented
      By a fast balm which thence did spring;
    Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
      Our eyes upon one double string.

    So to engraft our hands, as yet
      Was all the means to make us one;
    And pictures in our eyes to get
      Was all our propagation.

    As ’twixt two equal armies Fate
      Suspends uncertain victory,
    Our souls--which to advance their state
      Were gone out--hung ’twixt her and me.

    And whilst our souls negotiate there,
      We like sepulchral statues lay;
    All day the same our postures were,
      And we said nothing, all the day.


_199._ _The Dream_

    Dear love, for nothing less than thee
    Would I have broke this happy dream,
            It was a theme
    For reason, much too strong for fantasy.
    Therefore thou waked’st me wisely; yet
    My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it.
    Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
    To make dreams truths and fables histories;
    Enter these arms, for since thou thought’st it best
    Not to dream all my dream, let’s act the rest.

    As lightning, or a taper’s light,
    Thine eyes, and not thy noise, waked me;
            Yet I thought thee--
    For thou lov’st truth--an angel, at first sight;
    But when I saw thou saw’st my heart,
    And knew’st my thoughts beyond an angel’s art,
    When thou knew’st what I dreamt, when thou knew’st when
    Excess of joy would wake me, and cam’st then,
    I must confess it could not choose but be
    Profane to think thee anything but thee.

    Coming and staying show’d thee thee,
    But rising makes me doubt that now
            Thou art not thou.
    That Love is weak where Fear’s as strong as he;
    ’Tis not all spirit pure and brave
    If mixture it of Fear, Shame, Honour have.
    Perchance as torches, which must ready be,
    Men light and put out, so thou deal’st with me.
    Thou cam’st to kindle, go’st to come: then I
    Will dream that hope again, but else would die.


_200._ _The Funeral_

    Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm
            Nor question much
    That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm;
    The mystery, the sign you must not touch,
            For ’tis my outward soul,
    Viceroy to that which, unto heav’n being gone,
            Will leave this to control
    And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

    For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall
            Through every part
    Can tie those parts, and make me one of all;
    Those hairs, which upward grew, and strength and art
            Have from a better brain,
    Can better do’t: except she meant that I
            By this should know my pain,
    As prisoners then are manacled, when they’re condemn’d to die.

    Whate’er she meant by ’t, bury it with me,
            For since I am
    Love’s martyr, it might breed idolatry
    If into other hands these reliques came.
            As ’twas humility
    T’ afford to it all that a soul can do,
            So ’tis some bravery
    That, since you would have none of me, I bury some of you.


_201._ _A Hymn to God the Father_

    Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
      Which was my sin, though it were done before?
    Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,
      And do run still, though still I do deplore?
    When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
            For I have more.


    Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
      Others to sin, and made my sins their door?
    Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
      A year or two, but wallow’d in a score?
    When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
            For I have more.

    I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun
      My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
    But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son
      Shall shine as He shines now and heretofore:
    And having done that, Thou hast done;
            I fear no more.


_202._ _Death_

    Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee
    Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
    For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
    Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
    From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
    Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
    And soonest our best men with thee do go--
    Rest of their bones and souls’ delivery!
    Thou’rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
    And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
    And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
    And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then?
      One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
      And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!




RICHARD BARNEFIELD

1574-1627


_203._ _Philomel_

    As it fell upon a day
    In the merry month of May,
    Sitting in a pleasant shade
    Which a grove of myrtles made,
    Beasts did leap and birds did sing,
    Trees did grow and plants did spring;
    Everything did banish moan
    Save the Nightingale alone:
    She, poor bird, as all forlorn
    Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn,
    And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
    That to hear it was great pity.
    _Fie, fie, fie!_ now would she cry;
    _Tereu, Tereu!_ by and by;
    That to hear her so complain
    Scarce I could from tears refrain;
    For her griefs so lively shown
    Made me think upon mine own.
    Ah! thought I, thou mourn’st in vain,
    None takes pity on thy pain:
    Senseless trees they cannot hear thee,
    Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee:
    King Pandion he is dead,
    All thy friends are lapp’d in lead;
    All thy fellow birds do sing
    Careless of thy sorrowing:
    Even so, poor bird, like thee,
    None alive will pity me.




THOMAS DEKKER

1575-1641


_204._ _Sweet Content_

    Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
              O sweet content!
    Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex’d?
              O punishment!
    Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex’d
    To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
        O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
    Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
    Honest labour bears a lovely face;
    Then hey nonny nonny--hey nonny nonny!

    Canst drink the waters of the crispèd spring?
              O sweet content!
    Swim’st thou in wealth, yet sink’st in thine own tears?
              O punishment!
    Then he that patiently want’s burden bears,
    No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
        O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
    Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
    Honest labour bears a lovely face;
    Then hey nonny nonny--hey nonny nonny!




THOMAS HEYWOOD

157?-1650


_205._ _Matin Song_

    Pack, clouds, away! and welcome, day!
      With night we banish sorrow.
    Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft
      To give my Love good-morrow!
    Wings from the wind to please her mind,
      Notes from the lark I’ll borrow:
    Bird, prune thy wing! nightingale, sing!
      To give my Love good-morrow!
          To give my Love good-morrow
          Notes from them all I’ll borrow.

    Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast!
      Sing, birds, in every furrow!
    And from each bill let music shrill
      Give my fair Love good-morrow!
    Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
      Stare, linnet, and cocksparrow,
    You pretty elves, among yourselves
      Sing my fair Love good-morrow!
          To give my Love good-morrow!
          Sing, birds, in every furrow!

     _205._ stare] starling.


_206._ _The Message_

    Ye little birds that sit and sing
      Amidst the shady valleys,
    And see how Phillis sweetly walks
      Within her garden-alleys;
    Go, pretty birds, about her bower;
    Sing, pretty birds, she may not lower;
    Ah me! methinks I see her frown!
        Ye pretty wantons, warble.

    Go tell her through your chirping bills,
      As you by me are bidden,
    To her is only known my love,
      Which from the world is hidden.
    Go, pretty birds, and tell her so,
    See that your notes strain not too low.
    For still methinks I see her frown;
        Ye pretty wantons, warble.

    Go tune your voices’ harmony
      And sing, I am her lover;
    Strain loud and sweet, that every note
      With sweet content may move her:
    And she that hath the sweetest voice,
    Tell her I will not change my choice:
    --Yet still methinks I see her frown!
        Ye pretty wantons, warble.

    O fly! make haste! see, see, she falls
      Into a pretty slumber!
    Sing round about her rosy bed
      That waking she may wonder:
    Say to her, ’tis her lover true
    That sendeth love to you, to you!
    And when you hear her kind reply,
        Return with pleasant warblings.




JOHN FLETCHER

1579-1625


_207._ _Sleep_

    Come, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving
        Lock me in delight awhile;
        Let some pleasing dreams beguile
        All my fancies; that from thence
        I may feel an influence
    All my powers of care bereaving!


    Though but a shadow, but a sliding,
        Let me know some little joy!
        We that suffer long annoy
        Are contented with a thought
        Through an idle fancy wrought:
    O let my joys have some abiding!


_208._ _Bridal Song_

    Cynthia, to thy power and thee
            We obey.
    Joy to this great company!
            And no day
    Come to steal this night away
      Till the rites of love are ended,
    And the lusty bridegroom say,
      Welcome, light, of all befriended!

    Pace out, you watery powers below;
            Let your feet,
    Like the galleys when they row,
            Even beat;
    Let your unknown measures, set
      To the still winds, tell to all
    That gods are come, immortal, great,
      To honour this great nuptial!


_209._ _Aspatia’s Song_

    Lay a garland on my herse
      Of the dismal yew;
    Maidens, willow branches bear;
      Say, I died true.


    My love was false, but I was firm
      From my hour of birth.
    Upon my buried body lie
      Lightly, gentle earth!


_210._ _Hymn to Pan_

    Sing his praises that doth keep
      Our flocks from harm,
    Pan, the father of our sheep;
      And arm in arm
    Tread we softly in a round,
    Whilst the hollow neighbouring ground
    Fills the music with her sound.

    Pan, O great god Pan, to thee
      Thus do we sing!
    Thou who keep’st us chaste and free
      As the young spring:
    Ever be thy honour spoke
    From that place the morn is broke
    To that place day doth unyoke!


_211._ _Away, Delights_

    Away, delights! go seek some other dwelling,
              For I must die.
    Farewell, false love! thy tongue is ever telling
              Lie after lie.
    For ever let me rest now from thy smarts;
              Alas, for pity go
              And fire their hearts
    That have been hard to thee! Mine was not so.


    Never again deluding love shall know me,
              For I will die;
    And all those griefs that think to overgrow me
              Shall be as I:
    For ever will I sleep, while poor maids cry--
              ‘Alas, for pity stay,
              And let us die
    With thee! Men cannot mock us in the clay.’


_212._ _Love’s Emblems_

    Now the lusty spring is seen;
      Golden yellow, gaudy blue,
      Daintily invite the view:
    Everywhere on every green
    Roses blushing as they blow,
      And enticing men to pull,
    Lilies whiter than the snow,
      Woodbines of sweet honey full:
        All love’s emblems, and all cry,
        ‘Ladies, if not pluck’d, we die.’

    Yet the lusty spring hath stay’d;
      Blushing red and purest white
      Daintily to love invite
    Every woman, every maid:
    Cherries kissing as they grow,
      And inviting men to taste,
    Apples even ripe below,
      Winding gently to the waist:
        All love’s emblems, and all cry,
        ‘Ladies, if not pluck’d, we die.’


_213._ _Hear, ye Ladies_

    Hear, ye ladies that despise
      What the mighty Love has done;
    Fear examples and be wise:
      Fair Callisto was a nun;
    Leda, sailing on the stream
      To deceive the hopes of man,
    Love accounting but a dream,
      Doted on a silver swan;
        Danaë, in a brazen tower,
        Where no love was, loved a shower.

    Hear, ye ladies that are coy,
      What the mighty Love can do;
    Fear the fierceness of the boy:
      The chaste Moon he makes to woo;
    Vesta, kindling holy fires,
      Circled round about with spies,
    Never dreaming loose desires,
      Doting at the altar dies;
        Ilion, in a short hour, higher
        He can build, and once more fire.


_214._ _God Lyaeus_

    God Lyaeus, ever young,
    Ever honour’d, ever sung,
    Stain’d with blood of lusty grapes,
    In a thousand lusty shapes
    Dance upon the mazer’s brim,
    In the crimson liquor swim;

     _214._ mazer] a bowl of maple-wood.

    From thy plenteous hand divine
    Let a river run with wine:
      God of youth, let this day here
      Enter neither care nor fear.


_215._ _Beauty Clear and Fair_

    Beauty clear and fair,
          Where the air
    Rather like a perfume dwells;
      Where the violet and the rose
      Their blue veins and blush disclose,
    And come to honour nothing else;

          Where to live near
          And planted there
    Is to live, and still live new;
      Where to gain a favour is
      More than light, perpetual bliss--
    Make me live by serving you!

    Dear, again back recall
          To this light,
    A stranger to himself and all!
      Both the wonder and the story
      Shall be yours, and eke the glory;
    I am your servant, and your thrall.


_216._ _Melancholy_

    Hence, all you vain delights,
      As short as are the nights
      Wherein you spend your folly!
    There’s naught in this life sweet,
    If men were wise to see’t,
      But only melancholy--
      O sweetest melancholy!
    Welcome, folded arms and fixèd eyes,
    A sight that piercing mortifies,
    A look that’s fasten’d to the ground,
    A tongue chain’d up without a sound!

    Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
    Places which pale passion loves!
    Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
    Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
      A midnight bell, a parting groan--
      These are the sounds we feed upon:
    Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
    Nothing’s so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.


_217._ _Weep no more_

    Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
    Sorrow calls no time that’s gone:
    Violets pluck’d, the sweetest rain
    Makes not fresh nor grow again.
    Trim thy locks, look cheerfully;
    Fate’s hid ends eyes cannot see.
    Joys as wingèd dreams fly fast,
    Why should sadness longer last?
    Grief is but a wound to woe;
    Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.




JOHN WEBSTER

?-1630?


_218._ _A Dirge_

    Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
    Since o’er shady groves they hover,
    And with leaves and flowers do cover
    The friendless bodies of unburied men.
    Call unto his funeral dole
    The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,
    To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
    And (when gay tombs are robb’d) sustain no harm;
    But keep the wolf far thence, that’s foe to men,
    For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.

     _218._ dole] lamentation.


_219._ _The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi_

    Hark! Now everything is still,
    The screech-owl and the whistler shrill,
    Call upon our dame aloud,
    And bid her quickly don her shroud!

    Much you had of land and rent;
    Your length in clay’s now competent:
    A long war disturb’d your mind;
    Here your perfect peace is sign’d.

    Of what is’t fools make such vain keeping?
    Sin their conception, their birth weeping,
    Their life a general mist of error,
    Their death a hideous storm of terror.
    Strew your hair with powders sweet,
    Don clean linen, bathe your feet,
    And--the foul fiend more to check--
    A crucifix let bless your neck:
    ’Tis now full tide ’tween night and day;
    End your groan and come away.


_220._ _Vanitas Vanitatum_

    All the flowers of the spring
    Meet to perfume our burying;
    These have but their growing prime,
    And man does flourish but his time:
    Survey our progress from our birth--
    We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.
    Courts adieu, and all delights,
    All bewitching appetites!
    Sweetest breath and clearest eye
    Like perfumes go out and die;
    And consequently this is done
    As shadows wait upon the sun.
    Vain the ambition of kings
    Who seek by trophies and dead things
    To leave a living name behind,
    And weave but nets to catch the wind.




WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING

1580?-1640


_221._ _Aurora_

    O happy Tithon! if thou know’st thy hap,
      And valuest thy wealth, as I my want,
      Then need’st thou not--which ah! I grieve to grant--
    Repine at Jove, lull’d in his leman’s lap:
    That golden shower in which he did repose--
          One dewy drop it stains
          Which thy Aurora rains
          Upon the rural plains,
    When from thy bed she passionately goes.

    Then, waken’d with the music of the merles,
      She not remembers Memnon when she mourns:
      That faithful flame which in her bosom burns
    From crystal conduits throws those liquid pearls:
      Sad from thy sight so soon to be removed,
          She so her grief delates.
       --O favour’d by the fates
          Above the happiest states,
    Who art of one so worthy well-beloved!




PHINEAS FLETCHER

1580-1650


_222._ _A Litany_

    Drop, drop, slow tears,
      And bathe those beauteous feet
    Which brought from Heaven
      The news and Prince of Peace:
    Cease not, wet eyes,
      His mercy to entreat;
    To cry for vengeance
      Sin doth never cease.
    In your deep floods
      Drown all my faults and fears;
    Nor let His eye
      See sin, but through my tears.




SIR JOHN BEAUMONT

1583-1627


_223._ _Of his Dear Son, Gervase_

    Dear Lord, receive my son, whose winning love
    To me was like a friendship, far above
    The course of nature or his tender age;
    Whose looks could all my bitter griefs assuage:
    Let his pure soul, ordain’d seven years to be
    In that frail body which was part of me,
    Remain my pledge in Heaven, as sent to show
    How to this port at every step I go.




WILLIAM DRUMMOND, OF HAWTHORNDEN

1585-1649


_224._ _Invocation_

        Phœbus, arise!
        And paint the sable skies
    With azure, white, and red;
    Rouse Memnon’s mother from her Tithon’s bed,
    That she thy career may with roses spread;
    The nightingales thy coming each-where sing;
    Make an eternal spring!
    Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
    Spread forth thy golden hair
    In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
    And emperor-like decore
    With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
    Chase hence the ugly night
    Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.
    This is that happy morn,
    That day, long wishèd day
    Of all my life so dark
    (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
    And fates not hope betray),
    Which, only white, deserves
    A diamond for ever should it mark:
    This is the morn should bring into this grove
    My Love, to hear and recompense my love.
    Fair King, who all preserves,
    But show thy blushing beams,
    And thou two sweeter eyes
    Shalt see than those which by Penèus’ streams
    Did once thy heart surprise:
    Nay, suns, which shine as clear
    As thou when two thou did to Rome appear.
    Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:
    If that ye, winds, would hear
    A voice surpassing far Amphion’s lyre,
    Your stormy chiding stay;
    Let zephyr only breathe
    And with her tresses play,
    Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death.

    The winds all silent are;
    And Phœbus in his chair
    Ensaffroning sea and air
    Makes vanish every star:
    Night like a drunkard reels
    Beyond the hills to shun his flaming wheels:
    The fields with flowers are deck’d in every hue,
    The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue;
    Here is the pleasant place--
    And everything, save Her, who all should grace.


_225._ _Madrigal_

        Like the Idalian queen,
        Her hair about her eyne,
    With neck and breast’s ripe apples to be seen,
        At first glance of the morn
    In Cyprus’ gardens gathering those fair flow’rs
        Which of her blood were born,
    I saw, but fainting saw, my paramours.
    The Graces naked danced about the place,
        The winds and trees amazed
        With silence on her gazed,
    The flowers did smile, like those upon her face;
    And as their aspen stalks those fingers band,
        That she might read my case,
    A hyacinth I wish’d me in her hand.

     _225._ paramours] = sing. paramour. band] bound.


_226._ _Spring Bereaved 1_

        That zephyr every year
        So soon was heard to sigh in forests here,
    It was for her: that wrapp’d in gowns of green
        Meads were so early seen,
    That in the saddest months oft sung the merles,
    It was for her; for her trees dropp’d forth pearls.
        That proud and stately courts
    Did envy those our shades and calm resorts,
    It was for her; and she is gone, O woe!
        Woods cut again do grow,
    Bud doth the rose and daisy, winter done;
    But we, once dead, no more do see the sun.


_227._ _Spring Bereaved 2_

    Sweet Spring, thou turn’st with all thy goodly train,
    Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow’rs:
    The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
    The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show’rs.
    Thou turn’st, sweet youth, but ah! my pleasant hours
    And happy days with thee come not again;
    The sad memorials only of my pain
    Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets in sours.
    Thou art the same which still thou wast before,
    Delicious, wanton, amiable, fair;
    But she, whose breath embalm’d thy wholesome air,
    Is gone--nor gold nor gems her can restore.
      Neglected virtue, seasons go and come,
      While thine forgot lie closèd in a tomb.


_228._ _Spring Bereaved 3_

    Alexis, here she stay’d; among these pines,
    Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair;
    Here did she spread the treasure of her hair,
    More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines.
    She set her by these muskèd eglantines,
    --The happy place the print seems yet to bear:
    Her voice did sweeten here thy sugar’d lines,
    To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear.
    Me here she first perceived, and here a morn
    Of bright carnations did o’erspread her face;
    Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born,
    And I first got a pledge of promised grace:
      But ah! what served it to be happy so?
      Sith passèd pleasures double but new woe?


_229._ _Her Passing_

        The beauty and the life
        Of life’s and beauty’s fairest paragon
    --O tears! O grief!--hung at a feeble thread
    To which pale Atropos had set her knife;
        The soul with many a groan
        Had left each outward part,
    And now did take his last leave of the heart:
    Naught else did want, save death, ev’n to be dead;
    When the afflicted band about her bed,
    Seeing so fair him come in lips, cheeks, eyes,
    Cried, ‘_Ah! and can Death enter Paradise?_’


_230._ _Inexorable_

        My thoughts hold mortal strife;
        I do detest my life,
        And with lamenting cries
        Peace to my soul to bring
    Oft call that prince which here doth monarchise:
     --But he, grim-grinning King,
    Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise.
    Late having deck’d with beauty’s rose his tomb,
    Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.


_231._ _Change should breed Change_

        New doth the sun appear,
        The mountains’ snows decay,
    Crown’d with frail flowers forth comes the baby year.
        My soul, time posts away;
        And thou yet in that frost
        Which flower and fruit hath lost,
    As if all here immortal were, dost stay.
        For shame! thy powers awake,
    Look to that Heaven which never night makes black,
    And there at that immortal sun’s bright rays,
    Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days!


_232._ _Saint John Baptist_

    The last and greatest Herald of Heaven’s King,
    Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,
    Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,
    Which he than man more harmless found and mild.
    His food was locusts, and what young doth spring
    With honey that from virgin hives distill’d;
    Parch’d body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing
    Made him appear, long since from earth exiled.
    There burst he forth: ‘All ye, whose hopes rely
    On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn;
    Repent, repent, and from old errors turn!’
    --Who listen’d to his voice, obey’d his cry?
      Only the echoes, which he made relent,
      Rung from their marble caves ‘Repent! Repent!’




GILES FLETCHER

158?-1623


_233._ _Wooing Song_

    Love is the blossom where there blows
    Every thing that lives or grows:
    Love doth make the Heav’ns to move,
    And the Sun doth burn in love:
    Love the strong and weak doth yoke,
    And makes the ivy climb the oak,
    Under whose shadows lions wild,
    Soften’d by love, grow tame and mild:
    Love no med’cine can appease,
    He burns the fishes in the seas:
    Not all the skill his wounds can stench,
    Not all the sea his fire can quench.
    Love did make the bloody spear
    Once a leavy coat to wear,
    While in his leaves there shrouded lay
    Sweet birds, for love that sing and play
    And of all love’s joyful flame
    I the bud and blossom am.
        Only bend thy knee to me,
        Thy wooing shall thy winning be

    See, see the flowers that below
    Now as fresh as morning blow;
    And of all the virgin rose
    That as bright Aurora shows;
    How they all unleavèd die,
    Losing their virginity!
    Like unto a summer shade,
    But now born, and now they fade.
    Every thing doth pass away;
    There is danger in delay:
    Come, come, gather then the rose,
    Gather it, or it you lose!
    All the sand of Tagus’ shore
    Into my bosom casts his ore:
    All the valleys’ swimming corn
    To my house is yearly borne:
    Every grape of every vine
    Is gladly bruised to make me wine:
    While ten thousand kings, as proud,
    To carry up my train have bow’d,
    And a world of ladies send me
    In my chambers to attend me:
    All the stars in Heav’n that shine,
    And ten thousand more, are mine:
        Only bend thy knee to me,
        Thy wooing shall thy winning be!




FRANCIS BEAUMONT

1586-1616


_234._ _On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey_

    Mortality, behold and fear!
    What a change of flesh is here!
    Think how many royal bones
    Sleep within this heap of stones:
    Here they lie had realms and lands,
    Who now want strength to stir their hands:
    Where from their pulpits seal’d with dust
    They preach, ‘In greatness is no trust.’
    Here’s an acre sown indeed
    With the richest, royall’st seed
    That the earth did e’er suck in
    Since the first man died for sin:
    Here the bones of birth have cried--
    ‘Though gods they were, as men they died.’
    Here are sands, ignoble things,
    Dropt from the ruin’d sides of kings;
    Here’s a world of pomp and state,
    Buried in dust, once dead by fate.




JOHN FORD

1586-1639


_235._ _Dawn_

    Fly hence, shadows, that do keep
    Watchful sorrows charm’d in sleep!
    Tho’ the eyes be overtaken,
    Yet the heart doth ever waken
    Thoughts chain’d up in busy snares
    Of continual woes and cares:
    Love and griefs are so exprest
    As they rather sigh than rest.
        Fly hence, shadows, that do keep
        Watchful sorrows charm’d in sleep!




GEORGE WITHER

1588-1667


_236._ _I loved a Lass_

    I loved a lass, a fair one,
      As fair as e’er was seen;
    She was indeed a rare one,
      Another Sheba Queen:
    But, fool as then I was,
      I thought she loved me too:
    But now, alas! she’s left me,
      _Falero, lero, loo_!

    Her hair like gold did glister,
      Each eye was like a star,
    She did surpass her sister,
      Which pass’d all others far;
    She would me honey call,
      She’d--O she’d kiss me too!
    But now, alas! she’s left me,
      _Falero, lero, loo_!


    Many a merry meeting
      My love and I have had;
    She was my only sweeting,
      She made my heart full glad;
    The tears stood in her eyes
      Like to the morning dew:
    But now, alas! she’s left me,
      _Falero, lero, loo_!

    Her cheeks were like the cherry,
      Her skin was white as snow;
    When she was blithe and merry
      She angel-like did show;
    Her waist exceeding small,
      The fives did fit her shoe:
    But now, alas! she’s left me,
      _Falero, lero, loo_!

    In summer time or winter
      She had her heart’s desire;
    I still did scorn to stint her
      From sugar, sack, or fire;
    The world went round about,
      No cares we ever knew:
    But now, alas! she’s left me,
      _Falero, lero, loo_!

    To maidens’ vows and swearing
      Henceforth no credit give;
    You may give them the hearing.
      But never them believe;
    They are as false as fair,
      Unconstant, frail, untrue:
    For mine, alas! hath left me,
      _Falero, lero, loo_!


_237._ _The Lover’s Resolution_

    Shall I, wasting in despair,
    Die because a woman’s fair?
    Or make pale my cheeks with care
    ’Cause another’s rosy are?
    Be she fairer than the day,
    Or the flow’ry meads in May,
      If she think not well of me,
      What care I how fair she be?

    Shall my silly heart be pined
    ’Cause I see a woman kind?
    Or a well disposèd nature
    Joinèd with a lovely feature?
    Be she meeker, kinder, than
    Turtle-dove or pelican,
      If she be not so to me,
      What care I how kind she be?

    Shall a woman’s virtues move
    Me to perish for her love?
    Or her well-deservings known
    Make me quite forget my own?
    Be she with that goodness blest
    Which may merit name of Best,
      If she be not such to me,
      What care I how good she be?

    ’Cause her fortune seems too high,
    Shall I play the fool and die?
    She that bears a noble mind,
    If not outward helps she find,
    Thinks what with them he would do
    That without them dares her woo;
      And unless that mind I see,
      What care I how great she be?

    Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
    I will ne’er the more despair;
    If she love me, this believe,
    I will die ere she shall grieve;
    If she slight me when I woo,
    I can scorn and let her go;
      For if she be not for me,
      What care I for whom she be?


_238._ _The Choice_

    Me so oft my fancy drew
    Here and there, that I ne’er knew
    Where to place desire before
    So that range it might no more;
    But as he that passeth by
    Where, in all her jollity,
    Flora’s riches in a row
    Do in seemly order grow,
    And a thousand flowers stand
    Bending as to kiss his hand;
    Out of which delightful store
    One he may take and no more;
    Long he pausing doubteth whether
    Of those fair ones he should gather.

    First the Primrose courts his eyes,
    Then the Cowslip he espies;
    Next the Pansy seems to woo him,
    Then Carnations bow unto him;
    Which whilst that enamour’d swain
    From the stalk intends to strain,
    (As half-fearing to be seen)
    Prettily her leaves between
    Peeps the Violet, pale to see
    That her virtues slighted be;
    Which so much his liking wins
    That to seize her he begins.

    Yet before he stoop’d so low
    He his wanton eye did throw
    On a stem that grew more high,
    And the Rose did there espy.
    Who, beside her previous scent,
    To procure his eyes content
    Did display her goodly breast,
    Where he found at full exprest
    All the good that Nature showers
    On a thousand other flowers;
    Wherewith he affected takes it,
    His belovèd flower he makes it,
    And without desire of more
    Walks through all he saw before.

    So I wand’ring but erewhile
    Through the garden of this Isle,
    Saw rich beauties, I confess,
    And in number numberless.
    Yea, so differing lovely too,
    That I had a world to do
    Ere I could set up my rest,
    Where to choose and choose the best.
    Thus I fondly fear’d, till Fate
    (Which I must confess in that
    Did a greater favour to me
    Than the world can malice do me)
    Show’d to me that matchless flower.
    Subject for this song of our;
    Whose perfection having eyed,
    Reason instantly espied
    That Desire, which ranged abroad,
    There would find a period:
    And no marvel if it might,
    For it there hath all delight,
    And in her hath nature placed
    What each several fair one graced.

    Let who list, for me, advance
    The admirèd flowers of France,
    Let who will praise and behold
    The reservèd Marigold;
    Let the sweet-breath’d Violet now
    Unto whom she pleaseth bow;
    And the fairest Lily spread
    Where she will her golden head;
    I have such a flower to wear
    That for those I do not care.

    Let the young and happy swains
    Playing on the Britain plains
    Court unblamed their shepherdesses,
    And with their gold curlèd tresses
    Toy uncensured, until I
    Grudge at their prosperity.
    Let all times, both present, past,
    And the age that shall be last,
    Vaunt the beauties they bring forth.
    I have found in one such worth,
    That content I neither care
    What the best before me were;
    Nor desire to live and see
    Who shall fair hereafter be;
    For I know the hand of Nature
    Will not make a fairer creature.


_239._ _A Widow’s Hymn_

    How near me came the hand of Death,
      When at my side he struck my dear,
    And took away the precious breath
      Which quicken’d my belovèd peer!
        How helpless am I thereby made!
        By day how grieved, by night how sad!
    And now my life’s delight is gone,
    --Alas! how am I left alone!

    The voice which I did more esteem
      Than music in her sweetest key,
    Those eyes which unto me did seem
      More comfortable than the day;
        Those now by me, as they have been,
        Shall never more be heard or seen;
    But what I once enjoy’d in them
    Shall seem hereafter as a dream.

     _239._ peer] companion.

    Lord! keep me faithful to the trust
      Which my dear spouse reposed in me:
    To him now dead preserve me just
      In all that should performèd be!
        For though our being man and wife
        Extendeth only to this life,
    Yet neither life nor death should end
    The being of a faithful friend.




WILLIAM BROWNE, OF TAVISTOCK

1588-1643


_240._ _A Welcome_

    _Welcome, welcome! do I sing,_
    _Far more welcome than the spring;_
    _He that parteth from you never_
    _Shall enjoy a spring for ever._

    He that to the voice is near
      Breaking from your iv’ry pale,
    Need not walk abroad to hear
      The delightful nightingale.
                        _Welcome, welcome, then...._

    He that looks still on your eyes,
      Though the winter have begun
    To benumb our arteries,
       Shall not want the summer’s sun.
                        _Welcome, welcome, then...._

    He that still may see your cheeks,
      Where all rareness still reposes,
    Is a fool if e’er he seeks
      Other lilies, other roses.
                        _Welcome, welcome, then...._


    He to whom your soft lip yields,
      And perceives your breath in kissing,
    All the odours of the fields
      Never, never shall be missing.
                        _Welcome, welcome, then...._

    He that question would anew
      What fair Eden was of old,
    Let him rightly study you,
      And a brief of that behold.
                        _Welcome, welcome, then...._


_241._ _The Sirens’ Song_

    Steer, hither steer your wingèd pines,
        All beaten mariners!
    Here lie Love’s undiscover’d mines,
        A prey to passengers--
    Perfumes far sweeter than the best
    Which make the Phœnix’ urn and nest.
        Fear not your ships,
    Nor any to oppose you save our lips;
        But come on shore,
    Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten more.

    For swelling waves our panting breasts,
        Where never storms arise,
    Exchange, and be awhile our guests:
        For stars gaze on our eyes.
    The compass Love shall hourly sing,
    And as he goes about the ring,
        We will not miss
    To tell each point he nameth with a kiss.
     --Then come on shore,
    Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten more.


_242._ _The Rose_

    A rose, as fair as ever saw the North,
    Grew in a little garden all alone;
    A sweeter flower did Nature ne’er put forth,
    Nor fairer garden yet was never known:
    The maidens danced about it morn and noon.
    And learnèd bards of it their ditties made;
    The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moon
    Water’d the root and kiss’d her pretty shade.
    But well-a-day!--the gardener careless grew;
    The maids and fairies both were kept away,
    And in a drought the caterpillars threw
    Themselves upon the bud and every spray.
      God shield the stock! If heaven send no supplies,
      The fairest blossom of the garden dies.


_243._ _Song_

    For her gait, if she be walking;
    Be she sitting, I desire her
    For her state’s sake; and admire her
    For her wit if she be talking;
        Gait and state and wit approve her;
        For which all and each I love her.

    Be she sullen, I commend her
    For a modest. Be she merry,
    For a kind one her prefer I.
    Briefly, everything doth lend her
        So much grace, and so approve her,
        That for everything I love her.


_244._ _Memory_

    So shuts the marigold her leaves
      At the departure of the sun;
    So from the honeysuckle sheaves
      The bee goes when the day is done;
    So sits the turtle when she is but one,
    And so all woe, as I since she is gone.

    To some few birds kind Nature hath
      Made all the summer as one day:
    Which once enjoy’d, cold winter’s wrath
      As night they sleeping pass away.
    Those happy creatures are, that know not yet
    The pain to be deprived or to forget.

    I oft have heard men say there be
      Some that with confidence profess
    The helpful Art of Memory:
      But could they teach Forgetfulness,
    I’d learn; and try what further art could do
    To make me love her and forget her too.


_Epitaphs_


_245._ _In Obitum M.S. Xº Maij, 1614_

    May! Be thou never graced with birds that sing,
                  Nor Flora’s pride!
    In thee all flowers and roses spring,
                  Mine only died.


_246._ _On the Countess Dowager of Pembroke_

    Underneath this sable herse
    Lies the subject of all verse:
    Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother:
    Death, ere thou hast slain another
    Fair and learn’d and good as she,
    Time shall throw a dart at thee.




ROBERT HERRICK

1591-1674


_247._ _Corinna’s going a-Maying_

    Get up, get up for shame! The blooming morn
        Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
        See how Aurora throws her fair
        Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
        Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
        The dew bespangling herb and tree!
    Each flower has wept and bow’d toward the east
    Above an hour since, yet you not drest;
        Nay! not so much as out of bed?
        When all the birds have matins said
        And sung their thankful hymns, ’tis sin.
        Nay, profanation, to keep in,
    Whereas a thousand virgins on this day
    Spring sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

    Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
    To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,
        And sweet as Flora. Take no care
        For jewels for your gown or hair:
        Fear not; the leaves will strew
        Gems in abundance upon you:


    Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
    Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.
        Come, and receive them while the light
        Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
        And Titan on the eastern hill
        Retires himself, or else stands still
    Till you come forth! Wash, dress, be brief in praying:
    Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying.

    Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, mark
    How each field turns a street, each street a park,
        Made green and trimm’d with trees! see how
        Devotion gives each house a bough
        Or branch! each porch, each door, ere this,
        An ark, a tabernacle is,
    Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove,
    As if here were those cooler shades of love.
        Can such delights be in the street
        And open fields, and we not see’t?
        Come, we’ll abroad: and let’s obey
        The proclamation made for May,
    And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
    But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

    There’s not a budding boy or girl this day
    But is got up and gone to bring in May.
        A deal of youth ere this is come
        Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
        Some have despatch’d their cakes and cream,
        Before that we have left to dream:
    And some have wept and woo’d, and plighted troth,
    And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:

     beads] prayers.

        Many a green-gown has been given,
        Many a kiss, both odd and even:
        Many a glance, too, has been sent
        From out the eye, love’s firmament:
    Many a jest told of the keys betraying
    This night, and locks pick’d: yet we’re not a-Maying!

    Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,
    And take the harmless folly of the time!
        We shall grow old apace, and die
        Before we know our liberty.
        Our life is short, and our days run
        As fast away as does the sun.
    And, as a vapour or a drop of rain,
    Once lost, can ne’er be found again,
        So when or you or I are made
        A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
        All love, all liking, all delight
        Lies drown’d with us in endless night.
    Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,
    Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

     _247._ green-gown] tumble on the grass.


_248._ _To the Virgins, to make much of Time_

    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.

    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.


    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.

    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.


_249._ _To the Western Wind_

    Sweet western wind, whose luck it is,
      Made rival with the air,
    To give Perenna’s lip a kiss,
      And fan her wanton hair:

    Bring me but one, I’ll promise thee,
      Instead of common showers,
    Thy wings shall be embalm’d by me,
      And all beset with flowers.


_250._ _To Electra_

    I dare not ask a kiss,
      I dare not beg a smile,
    Lest having that, or this,
      I might grow proud the while.

    No, no, the utmost share
      Of my desire shall be
    Only to kiss that air
      That lately kissèd thee.


_251._ _To Violets_

    Welcome, maids of honour!
        You do bring
        In the spring,
    And wait upon her.

    She has virgins many,
        Fresh and fair;
        Yet you are
    More sweet than any.

    You’re the maiden posies,
        And so graced
        To be placed
    ’Fore damask roses.

    Yet, though thus respected,
        By-and-by
        Ye do lie,
    Poor girls, neglected.


_252._ _To Daffodils_

    Fair daffodils, we weep to see
      You haste away so soon;
    As yet the early-rising sun
      Has not attain’d his noon.
            Stay, stay
        Until the hasting day
            Has run
        But to the evensong;
    And, having pray’d together, we
        Will go with you along.


    We have short time to stay, as you,
      We have as short a spring;
    As quick a growth to meet decay,
      As you, or anything.
            We die
        As your hours do, and dry
            Away
        Like to the summer’s rain;
    Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
        Ne’er to be found again.


_253._ _To Blossoms_

    Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
        Why do ye fall so fast?
      Your date is not so past
    But you may stay yet here awhile
      To blush and gently smile,
          And go at last.

    What! were ye born to be
      An hour or half’s delight,
      And so to bid good night?
    ’Twas pity Nature brought you forth
      Merely to show your worth
          And lose you quite.

    But you are lovely leaves, where we
      May read how soon things have
      Their end, though ne’er so brave:
    And after they have shown their pride
      Like you awhile, they glide
          Into the grave.


_254._ _The Primrose_

    Ask me why I send you here
    This sweet Infanta of the year?
    Ask me why I send to you
    This primrose, thus bepearl’d with dew?
    I will whisper to your ears:--
    The sweets of love are mix’d with tears.

    Ask me why this flower does show
    So yellow-green, and sickly too?
    Ask me why the stalk is weak
    And bending (yet it doth not break)?
    I will answer:--These discover
    What fainting hopes are in a lover.


_255._ _The Funeral Rites of the Rose_

    The Rose was sick and smiling died;
    And, being to be sanctified,
    About the bed there sighing stood
    The sweet and flowery sisterhood:
    Some hung the head, while some did bring,
    To wash her, water from the spring;
    Some laid her forth, while others wept,
    But all a solemn fast there kept:
    The holy sisters, some among,
    The sacred dirge and trental sung.
    But ah! what sweets smelt everywhere,
    As Heaven had spent all perfumes there.
    At last, when prayers for the dead
    And rites were all accomplishèd,
    They, weeping, spread a lawny loom,
    And closed her up as in a tomb.

     _255._ trental] services for the dead, of thirty masses.


_256._ _Cherry-Ripe_

    Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
    Full and fair ones; come and buy.
    If so be you ask me where
    They do grow, I answer: There
    Where my Julia’s lips do smile;
    There’s the land, or cherry-isle,
    Whose plantations fully show
    All the year where cherries grow.


_257._ _A Meditation for his Mistress_

    You are a tulip seen to-day,
    But, dearest, of so short a stay
    That where you grew scarce man can say.

    You are a lovely July-flower,
    Yet one rude wind or ruffling shower
    Will force you hence, and in an hour.

    You are a sparkling rose i’ th’ bud,
    Yet lost ere that chaste flesh and blood
    Can show where you or grew or stood.

    You are a full-spread, fair-set vine,
    And can with tendrils love entwine,
    Yet dried ere you distil your wine.

    You are like balm enclosèd well
    In amber or some crystal shell,
    Yet lost ere you transfuse your smell.


    You are a dainty violet,
    Yet withered ere you can be set
    Within the virgin’s coronet.

    You are the queen all flowers among;
    But die you must, fair maid, ere long,
    As he, the maker of this song.


_258._ _Delight in Disorder_

    A sweet disorder in the dress
    Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
    A lawn about the shoulders thrown
    Into a fine distraction:
    An erring lace, which here and there
    Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
    A cuff neglectful, and thereby
    Ribbands to flow confusedly:
    A winning wave, deserving note,
    In the tempestuous petticoat:
    A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
    I see a wild civility:
    Do more bewitch me than when art
    Is too precise in every part.


_259._ _Upon Julia’s Clothes_

    Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
    Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
    The liquefaction of her clothes!

    Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
    That brave vibration each way free,
    --O how that glittering taketh me!


_260._ _The Bracelet: To Julia_

    Why I tie about thy wrist,
    Julia, this silken twist;
    For what other reason is’t
    But to show thee how, in part,
    Thou my pretty captive art?
    But thy bond-slave is my heart:
    ’Tis but silk that bindeth thee,
    Knap the thread and thou art free;
    But ’tis otherwise with me:
    --I am bound and fast bound, so
    That from thee I cannot go;
    If I could, I would not so.


_261._ _To Daisies, not to shut so soon_

    Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night
      Has not as yet begun
    To make a seizure on the light,
      Or to seal up the sun.

    No marigolds yet closèd are,
      No shadows great appear;
    Nor doth the early shepherd’s star
      Shine like a spangle here.

    Stay but till my Julia close
      Her life-begetting eye,
    And let the whole world then dispose
      Itself to live or die.


_262._ _The Night-piece: To Julia_

    Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
    The shooting stars attend thee;
        And the elves also,
        Whose little eyes glow
    Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.

    No Will-o’-the-wisp mislight thee,
    Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
        But on, on thy way
        Not making a stay,
    Since ghost there’s none to affright thee.

    Let not the dark thee cumber:
    What though the moon does slumber?
        The stars of the night
        Will lend thee their light
    Like tapers clear without number.

    Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
    Thus, thus to come unto me;
        And when I shall meet
        Thy silv’ry feet,
    My soul I’ll pour into thee.


_263._ _To Music, to becalm his Fever_

    Charm me asleep, and melt me so
      With thy delicious numbers,
    That, being ravish’d, hence I go
      Away in easy slumbers.
          Ease my sick head,
          And make my bed,
      Thou power that canst sever
          From me this ill,
          And quickly still,
          Though thou not kill
            My fever.

    Thou sweetly canst convert the same
      From a consuming fire
    Into a gentle licking flame,
      And make it thus expire.
          Then make me weep
          My pains asleep;
      And give me such reposes
          That I, poor I,
          May think thereby
          I live and die
            ’Mongst roses.

    Fall on me like the silent dew,
      Or like those maiden showers
    Which, by the peep of day, do strew
      A baptism o’er the flowers.
          Melt, melt my pains
          With thy soft strains;
      That, having ease me given,
          With full delight
          I leave this light,
          And take my flight
            For Heaven.


_264._ _To Dianeme_

    Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes
    Which starlike sparkle in their skies;
    Nor be you proud that you can see
    All hearts your captives, yours yet free;
    Be you not proud of that rich hair
    Which wantons with the love-sick air;
    Whenas that ruby which you wear,
    Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
    Will last to be a precious stone
    When all your world of beauty’s gone.


_265._ _To Œnone_

    What conscience, say, is it in thee,
      When I a heart had one,
    To take away that heart from me,
      And to retain thy own?

    For shame or pity now incline
      To play a loving part;
    Either to send me kindly thine,
      Or give me back my heart.

    Covet not both; but if thou dost
      Resolve to part with neither,
    Why, yet to show that thou art just,
      Take me and mine together!


_266._ _To Anthea, who may command him Anything_

    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.

    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.

    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.

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

    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.

    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.


_267._ _To the Willow-tree_

    Thou art to all lost love the best,
      The only true plant found,
    Wherewith young men and maids distrest,
      And left of love, are crown’d.

    When once the lover’s rose is dead,
      Or laid aside forlorn:
    Then willow-garlands ’bout the head
      Bedew’d with tears are worn.

    When with neglect, the lovers’ bane,
      Poor maids rewarded be
    For their love lost, their only gain
      Is but a wreath from thee.

    And underneath thy cooling shade,
      When weary of the light,
    The love-spent youth and love-sick maid
      Come to weep out the night.


_268._ _The Mad Maid’s Song_

    Good-morrow to the day so fair,
      Good-morning, sir, to you;
    Good-morrow to mine own torn hair
      Bedabbled with the dew.

    Good-morning to this primrose too,
      Good-morrow to each maid
    That will with flowers the tomb bestrew
      Wherein my love is laid.


    Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me!
      Alack and well-a-day!
    For pity, sir, find out that bee
      Which bore my love away.

    I’ll seek him in your bonnet brave,
      I’ll seek him in your eyes;
    Nay, now I think they’ve made his grave
      I’ th’ bed of strawberries.

    I’ll seek him there; I know ere this
      The cold, cold earth doth shake him;
    But I will go, or send a kiss
      By you, sir, to awake him.

    Pray hurt him not; though he be dead,
      He knows well who do love him,
    And who with green turfs rear his head,
      And who do rudely move him.

    He’s soft and tender (pray take heed);
      With bands of cowslips bind him,
    And bring him home--but ’tis decreed
      That I shall never find him!


_269._ _Comfort to a Youth that had lost his Love_

    What needs complaints,
    When she a place
    Has with the race
      Of saints?

    In endless mirth
    She thinks not on
    What’s said or done
      In Earth.


    She sees no tears,
    Or any tone
    Of thy deep groan
      She hears:

    Nor does she mind
    Or think on’t now
    That ever thou
      Wast kind;

    But changed above,
    She likes not there,
    As she did here,
      Thy love.

    Forbear therefore,
    And lull asleep
    Thy woes, and weep
      No more.


_270._ _To Meadows_

    Ye have been fresh and green,
      Ye have been fill’d with flowers,
    And ye the walks have been
      Where maids have spent their hours.

    You have beheld how they
      With wicker arks did come
    To kiss and bear away
      The richer cowslips home.

    You’ve heard them sweetly sing,
      And seen them in a round:
    Each virgin like a spring,
      With honeysuckles crown’d.


    But now we see none here
      Whose silv’ry feet did tread
    And with dishevell’d hair
      Adorn’d this smoother mead.

    Like unthrifts, having spent
      Your stock and needy grown,
    You’re left here to lament
      Your poor estates, alone.


_271._ _A Child’s Grace_

    Here a little child I stand
    Heaving up my either hand;
    Cold as paddocks though they be,
    Here I lift them up to Thee,
    For a benison to fall
    On our meat and on us all. Amen.

     _271._ paddocks] frogs.


_272._ _Epitaph_

_upon a Child that died_

    Here she lies, a pretty bud,
    Lately made of flesh and blood:
    Who as soon fell fast asleep
    As her little eyes did peep.
    Give her strewings, but not stir
    The earth that lightly covers her.


_273._ _Another_

    Here a pretty baby lies
    Sung asleep with lullabies:
    Pray be silent and not stir
    Th’ easy earth that covers her.


_274._ _His Winding-sheet_

    Come thou, who art the wine and wit
          Of all I’ve writ:
    The grace, the glory, and the best
          Piece of the rest.
    Thou art of what I did intend
          The all and end;
    And what was made, was made to meet
          Thee, thee, my sheet.
    Come then and be to my chaste side
          Both bed and bride:
    We two, as reliques left, will have
          One rest, one grave:
    And hugging close, we will not fear
          Lust entering here:
    Where all desires are dead and cold
          As is the mould;
    And all affections are forgot,
          Or trouble not.
    Here, here, the slaves and prisoners be
          From shackles free:
    And weeping widows long oppress’d
          Do here find rest.
    The wrongèd client ends his laws
          Here, and his cause.
    Here those long suits of Chancery lie
          Quiet, or die:
    And all Star-Chamber bills do cease
          Or hold their peace.
    Here needs no Court for our Request
          Where all are best,
    All wise, all equal, and all just
          Alike i’ th’ dust.
    Nor need we here to fear the frown
          Of court or crown:
    Where fortune bears no sway o’er things,
          There all are kings.
    In this securer place we’ll keep
          As lull’d asleep;
    Or for a little time we’ll lie
          As robes laid by;
    To be another day re-worn,
          Turn’d, but not torn:
    Or like old testaments engross’d,
          Lock’d up, not lost.
    And for a while lie here conceal’d,
          To be reveal’d
    Next at the great Platonick year,
          And then meet here.

     _274._ Platonick year] the perfect or cyclic year, when the sun,
     moon, and five planets end their revolutions together and start
     anew. See _Timæus_, p. 39.


_275._ _Litany to the Holy Spirit_

    In the hour of my distress,
    When temptations me oppress,
    And when I my sins confess,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When I lie within my bed,
    Sick in heart and sick in head,
    And with doubts discomforted,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When the house doth sigh and weep,
    And the world is drown’d in sleep,
    Yet mine eyes the watch do keep,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!


    When the passing bell doth toll,
    And the Furies in a shoal
    Come to fright a parting soul,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When the tapers now burn blue,
    And the comforters are few,
    And that number more than true,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When the priest his last hath pray’d,
    And I nod to what is said,
    ’Cause my speech is now decay’d,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When, God knows, I’m toss’d about
    Either with despair or doubt;
    Yet before the glass be out,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When the tempter me pursu’th
    With the sins of all my youth,
    And half damns me with untruth,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When the flames and hellish cries
    Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes,
    And all terrors me surprise,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

    When the Judgment is reveal’d,
    And that open’d which was seal’d,
    When to Thee I have appeal’d,
          Sweet Spirit, comfort me!




FRANCIS QUARLES

1592-1644


_276._ _A Divine Rapture_

    E’en like two little bank-dividing brooks,
      That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,
    And having ranged and search’d a thousand nooks,
      Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,
        Where in a greater current they conjoin:
    So I my Best-belovèd’s am; so He is mine.

    E’en so we met; and after long pursuit,
      E’en so we joined; we both became entire;
    No need for either to renew a suit,
      For I was flax, and He was flames of fire:
        Our firm-united souls did more than twine;
    So I my Best-belovèd’s am; so He is mine.

    If all those glittering Monarchs, that command
      The servile quarters of this earthly ball,
    Should tender in exchange their shares of land,
      I would not change my fortunes for them all:
        Their wealth is but a counter to my coin:
    The world’s but theirs; but my Belovèd’s mine.


_277._ _Epigram_

_Respice Finem_

    My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on;
    Judge not the play before the play is done:
    Her plot hath many changes; every day
    Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.




HENRY KING, BISHOP OF CHICHESTER

1592-1669


_278._ _A Contemplation upon Flowers_

    Brave flowers--that I could gallant it like you,
          And be as little vain!
    You come abroad, and make a harmless show,
          And to your beds of earth again.
    You are not proud: you know your birth:
    For your embroider’d garments are from earth.

    You do obey your months and times, but I
          Would have it ever Spring:
    My fate would know no Winter, never die,
          Nor think of such a thing.
    O that I could my bed of earth but view
    And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

    O teach me to see Death and not to fear,
          But rather to take truce!
    How often have I seen you at a bier,
          And there look fresh and spruce!
    You fragrant flowers! then teach me, that my breath
    Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death.


_279._ _A Renunciation_

    We, that did nothing study but the way
    To love each other, with which thoughts the day
    Rose with delight to us and with them set,
    Must learn the hateful art, how to forget.
    We, that did nothing wish that Heaven could give
    Beyond ourselves, nor did desire to live
    Beyond that wish, all these now cancel must,
    As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.
    Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make,
    Witness the chaste desires that never brake
    Into unruly heats; witness that breast
    Which in thy bosom anchor’d his whole rest--
    ’Tis no default in us: I dare acquite
    Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white
    As thy pure self. Cross planets did envý
    Us to each other, and Heaven did untie
    Faster than vows could bind. Oh, that the stars,
    When lovers meet, should stand opposed in wars!

    Since then some higher Destinies command,
    Let us not strive, nor labour to withstand
    What is past help. The longest date of grief
    Can never yield a hope of our relief:
    Fold back our arms; take home our fruitless loves,
    That must new fortunes try, like turtle-doves
    Dislodgèd from their haunts. We must in tears
    Unwind a love knit up in many years.
    In this last kiss I here surrender thee
    Back to thyself.--So, thou again art free:
    Thou in another, sad as that, resend
    The truest heart that lover e’er did lend.
    Now turn from each: so fare our sever’d hearts
    As the divorced soul from her body parts.


_280._ _Exequy on his Wife_

    Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,
    Instead of dirges this complaint;
    And for sweet flowers to crown thy herse
    Receive a strew of weeping verse
    From thy grieved friend, whom thou might’st see
    Quite melted into tears for thee.
      Dear loss! since thy untimely fate,
    My task hath been to meditate
    On thee, on thee! Thou art the book,
    The library whereon I look,
    Tho’ almost blind. For thee, loved clay,
    I languish out, not live, the day....
    Thou hast benighted me; thy set
    This eve of blackness did beget,
    Who wast my day (tho’ overcast
    Before thou hadst thy noontide past):
    And I remember must in tears
    Thou scarce hadst seen so many years
    As day tells hours. By thy clear sun
    My love and fortune first did run;
    But thou wilt never more appear
    Folded within my hemisphere,
    Since both thy light and motion,
    Like a fled star, is fall’n and gone,
    And ’twixt me and my soul’s dear wish
    The earth now interposèd is....
      I could allow thee for a time
    To darken me and my sad clime;
    Were it a month, a year, or ten,
    I would thy exile live till then,
    And all that space my mirth adjourn--
    So thou wouldst promise to return,
    And putting off thy ashy shroud
    At length disperse this sorrow’s cloud.
      But woe is me! the longest date
    Too narrow is to calculate
    These empty hopes: never shall I
    Be so much blest as to descry
    A glimpse of thee, till that day come
    Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
    And a fierce fever must calcine
    The body of this world--like thine,
    My little world! That fit of fire
    Once off, our bodies shall aspire
    To our souls’ bliss: then we shall rise
    And view ourselves with clearer eyes
    In that calm region where no night
    Can hide us from each other’s sight.
      Meantime thou hast her, earth: much good
    May my harm do thee! Since it stood
    With Heaven’s will I might not call
    Her longer mine, I give thee all
    My short-lived right and interest
    In her whom living I loved best.
    Be kind to her, and prithee look
    Thou write into thy Doomsday book
    Each parcel of this rarity
    Which in thy casket shrined doth lie,
    As thou wilt answer Him that lent--
    Not gave--thee my dear monument.
    So close the ground, and ’bout her shade
    Black curtains draw: my bride is laid.
      Sleep on, my Love, in thy cold bed
    Never to be disquieted!
    My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake
    Till I thy fate shall overtake:
    Till age, or grief, or sickness must
    Marry my body to that dust
    It so much loves; and fill the room
    My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
    Stay for me there: I will not fail
    To meet thee in that hollow vale.
    And think not much of my delay:
    I am already on the way,
    And follow thee with all the speed
    Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
    Each minute is a short degree
    And every hour a step towards thee....
      ’Tis true--with shame and grief I yield--
    Thou, like the van, first took’st the field;
    And gotten hast the victory
    In thus adventuring to die
    Before me, whose more years might crave
    A just precedence in the grave.
    But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,
    Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
    And slow howe’er my marches be
    I shall at last sit down by thee.
      The thought of this bids me go on
    And wait my dissolution
    With hope and comfort. Dear--forgive
    The crime--I am content to live
    Divided, with but half a heart,
    Till we shall meet and never part.




GEORGE HERBERT

1593-1632


_281._ _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.


_282._ _Easter_

    I got me flowers to straw Thy way,
      I got me boughs off many a tree;
    But Thou wast up by break of day,
      And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.

    Yet though my flowers be lost, they say
      A heart can never come too late;
    Teach it to sing Thy praise this day.
      And then this day my life shall date.


_283._ _Discipline_

    Throw away Thy rod,
    Throw away Thy wrath;
          O my God,
    Take the gentle path!


    For my heart’s desire
    Unto Thine is bent:
          I aspire
    To a full consent.

    Not a word or look
    I affect to own,
          But by book,
    And Thy Book alone.

    Though I fail, I weep;
    Though I halt in pace,
          Yet I creep
    To the throne of grace.

    Then let wrath remove;
    Love will do the deed:
          For with love
    Stony hearts will bleed.

    Love is swift of foot;
    Love’s a man of war,
          And can shoot,
    And can hit from far.

    Who can ’scape his bow?
    That which wrought on Thee,
          Brought Thee low,
    Needs must work on me.

    Throw away Thy rod;
    Though man frailties hath,
          Thou art God:
    Throw away Thy wrath!


_284._ _A Dialogue_

    _Man._ Sweetest Saviour, if my soul
            Were but worth the having,
          Quickly should I then control
            Any thought of waving.
          But when all my care and pains
          Cannot give the name of gains
          To Thy wretch so full of stains,
          What delight or hope remains?

    _Saviour._ What, child, is the balance thine,
               Thine the poise and measure?
             If I say, ‘Thou shalt be Mine,’
               Finger not My treasure.
             What the gains in having thee
             Do amount to, only He
             Who for man was sold can see
             That transferr’d th’ accounts to Me.

    _Man._ But as I can see no merit
            Leading to this favour,
          So the way to fit me for it
            Is beyond my savour.
          As the reason, then, is Thine,
          So the way is none of mine;
          I disclaim the whole design;
          Sin disclaims and I resign.

    _Saviour._ That is all: if that I could
               Get without repining;
             And My clay, My creature, would
               Follow My resigning;

     savour] savoir, knowing.

             That as I did freely part
             With My glory and desert,
             Left all joys to feel all smart----

    _Man._ Ah, no more! Thou break’st my heart!


_285._ _The Pulley_

          When God at first made Man,
    Having a glass of blessings standing by--
    Let us (said He) pour on him all we can;
    Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie,
          Contract into a span.

          So strength first made a way,
    Then beauty flow’d, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
    When almost all was out, God made a stay,
    Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,
          Rest in the bottom lay.

          For if I should (said He)
    Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
    He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
    And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
          So both should losers be.

          Yet let him keep the rest,
    But keep them with repining restlessness;
    Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
    If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
          May toss him to My breast.


_286._ _Love_

    Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
          Guilty of dust and sin.
    But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
          From my first entrance in,
    Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
          If I lack’d anything.

    ‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
          Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
    ‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
          I cannot look on Thee.’
    Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
          ‘Who made the eyes but I?’

    ‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
          Go where it doth deserve.’
    ‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
          ‘My dear, then I will serve.’
    ‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
          So I did sit and eat.




JAMES SHIRLEY

1596-1666


_287._ _A Hymn_

    Fly, my Soul! What hangs upon
            Thy drooping wings,
            And weighs them down
    With love of gaudy mortal things?

    The Sun is now i’ the east: each shade
            As he doth rise
            Is shorter made,
    That earth may lessen to our eyes.


    O be not careless then and play
            Until the Star of Peace
    Hide all his beams in dark recess!
    Poor pilgrims needs must lose their way,
    When all the shadows do increase.


_288._ _Death the Leveller_

    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 crookèd 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.




THOMAS CAREW

1595?-1639?


_289._ _Song_

    Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
    When June is past, the fading rose;
    For in your beauty’s orient deep
    These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

    Ask me no more whither do stray
    The golden atoms of the day;
    For in pure love heaven did prepare
    Those powders to enrich your hair.

    Ask me no more whither doth haste
    The nightingale when May is past;
    For in your sweet dividing throat
    She winters and keeps warm her note.

    Ask me no more where those stars ’light
    That downwards fall in dead of night
    For in your eyes they sit, and there
    Fixèd become as in their sphere.

    Ask me no more if east or west
    The Phœnix builds her spicy nest;
    For unto you at last she flies,
    And in your fragrant bosom dies.


_290._ _Persuasions to Joy: a Song_

    If the quick spirits in your eye
    Now languish and anon must die;
    If every sweet and every grace
    Must fly from that forsaken face;
        Then, Celia, let us reap our joys
        Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys.

    Or if that golden fleece must grow.
    For ever free from agèd snow;
    If those bright suns must know no shade,
    Nor your fresh beauties ever fade;
        Then fear not, Celia, to bestow
        What, still being gather’d, still must grow.

    Thus either Time his sickle brings
    In vain, or else in vain his wings.


_291._ _To His Inconstant Mistress_

    When thou, poor Excommunicate
      From all the joys of Love, shalt see
    The full reward and glorious fate
      Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
      Then curse thine own inconstancy!

    A fairer hand than thine shall cure
      That heart which thy false oaths did wound;
    And to my soul a soul more pure
      Than thine shall by Love’s hand be bound,
      And both with equal glory crown’d.

    Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain
      To Love, as I did once to thee;
    When all thy tears shall be as vain
      As mine were then: for thou shalt be
      Damn’d for thy false apostasy.


_292._ _The Unfading Beauty_

    He that loves a rosy cheek,
      Or a coral lip admires,
    Or from star-like eyes doth seek
      Fuel to maintain his fires:
    As old Time makes these decay,
    So his flames must waste away.

    But a smooth and steadfast mind,
      Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
    Hearts with equal love combined,
      Kindle never-dying fires.
    Where these are not, I despise
    Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.


_293._ _Ingrateful Beauty threatened_

    Know, Celia, since thou art so proud,
      ’Twas I that gave thee thy renown.
    Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd
      Of common beauties lived unknown,
    Had not my verse extoll’d thy name,
    And with it imp’d the wings of Fame.

    That killing power is none of thine;
      I gave it to thy voice and eyes;
    Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;
      Thou art my star, shin’st in my skies;
    Then dart not from thy borrow’d sphere
    Lightning on him that fix’d thee there.

     _293._ imp’d] grafted with new feathers.

    Tempt me with such affrights no more,
      Lest what I made I uncreate;
    Let fools thy mystic form adore,
      I know thee in thy mortal state.
    Wise poets, that wrapt Truth in tales,
    Knew her themselves through all her veils.


_294._ _Epitaph_

_On the Lady Mary Villiers_

    The Lady Mary Villiers lies
    Under this stone; with weeping eyes
    The parents that first gave her birth,
    And their sad friends, laid her in earth.
    If any of them, Reader, were
    Known unto thee, shed a tear;
    Or if thyself possess a gem
    As dear to thee, as this to them,
    Though a stranger to this place,
    Bewail in theirs thine own hard case:
      For thou perhaps at thy return
      May’st find thy Darling in an urn.


_295._ _Another_

    This little vault, this narrow room,
    Of Love and Beauty is the tomb;
    The dawning beam, that ’gan to clear
    Our clouded sky, lies darkened here,
    For ever set to us: by Death
    Sent to enflame the World Beneath,
      ’Twas but a bud, yet did contain
    More sweetness than shall spring again;
    A budding Star, that might have grown
    Into a Sun when it had blown.
    This hopeful Beauty did create
    New life in Love’s declining state;
    But now his empire ends, and we
    From fire and wounding darts are free;
      His brand, his bow, let no man fear:
      The flames, the arrows, all lie here.




JASPER MAYNE

1604-1672


_296._ _Time_

        Time is the feather’d thing,
        And, whilst I praise
    The sparklings of thy looks and call them rays,
                  Takes wing,
        Leaving behind him as he flies
    An unperceivèd dimness in thine eyes.
        His minutes, whilst they’re told,
            Do make us old;
        And every sand of his fleet glass,
        Increasing age as it doth pass,
        Insensibly sows wrinkles there
        Where flowers and roses do appear.
        Whilst we do speak, our fire
        Doth into ice expire,
            Flames turn to frost;
            And ere we can
        Know how our crow turns swan,
        Or how a silver snow
        Springs there where jet did grow,
    Our fading spring is in dull winter lost.
        Since then the Night hath hurl’d
            Darkness, Love’s shade,
        Over its enemy the Day, and made
                The world
        Just such a blind and shapeless thing
    As ’twas before light did from darkness spring,
        Let us employ its treasure
        And make shade pleasure:
    Let’s number out the hours by blisses,
    And count the minutes by our kisses;
        Let the heavens new motions feel
        And by our embraces wheel;
        And whilst we try the way
        By which Love doth convey
            Soul unto soul,
            And mingling so
        Makes them such raptures know
        As makes them entrancèd lie
            In mutual ecstasy,
    Let the harmonious spheres in music roll!




WILLIAM HABINGTON

1605-1654


_297._ _To Roses in the Bosom of Castara_

    Ye blushing virgins happy are
      In the chaste nunnery of her breasts--
    For he’d profane so chaste a fair,
      Whoe’er should call them Cupid’s nests.

    Transplanted thus how bright ye grow!
      How rich a perfume do ye yield!
    In some close garden cowslips so
      Are sweeter than i’ th’ open field.


    In those white cloisters live secure
      From the rude blasts of wanton breath!--
    Each hour more innocent and pure,
      Till you shall wither into death.

    Then that which living gave you room,
      Your glorious sepulchre shall be.
    There wants no marble for a tomb
      Whose breast hath marble been to me.


_298._ _Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam_

      When I survey the bright
            Celestial sphere;
    So rich with jewels hung, that Night
      Doth like an Ethiop bride appear:

      My soul her wings doth spread
            And heavenward flies,
    Th’ Almighty’s mysteries to read
      In the large volumes of the skies.

      For the bright firmament
            Shoots forth no flame
    So silent, but is eloquent
      In speaking the Creator’s name.

      No unregarded star
            Contracts its light
    Into so small a character,
      Removed far from our human sight,

      But if we steadfast look
            We shall discern
    In it, as in some holy book,
      How man may heavenly knowledge learn.


      It tells the conqueror
            That far-stretch’d power,
    Which his proud dangers traffic for,
      Is but the triumph of an hour:

      That from the farthest North,
            Some nation may,
    Yet undiscover’d, issue forth,
      And o’er his new-got conquest sway:

      Some nation yet shut in
            With hills of ice
    May be let out to scourge his sin,
      Till they shall equal him in vice.

      And then they likewise shall
            Their ruin have;
    For as yourselves your empires fall,
      And every kingdom hath a grave.

      Thus those celestial fires,
            Though seeming mute,
    The fallacy of our desires
      And all the pride of life confute:--

      For they have watch’d since first
            The World had birth:
    And found sin in itself accurst,
      And nothing permanent on Earth.




THOMAS RANDOLPH

1605-1635


_299._ _A Devout Lover_

    I have a mistress, for perfections rare
    In every eye, but in my thoughts most fair.
    Like tapers on the altar shine her eyes;
    Her breath is the perfume of sacrifice;
    And wheresoever my fancy would begin,
    Still her perfection lets religion in.
    We sit and talk, and kiss away the hours
    As chastely as the morning dews kiss flowers:
    I touch her, like my beads, with devout care,
    And come unto my courtship as my prayer.


_300._ _An Ode to Master Anthony Stafford_

_to hasten Him into the Country_

          Come, spur away,
              I have no patience for a longer stay,
          But must go down
      And leave the chargeable noise of this great town:
          I will the country see,
          Where old simplicity,
            Though hid in gray,
            Doth look more gay
      Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad.
        Farewell, you city wits, that are
          Almost at civil war--
    ’Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.


            More of my days
      I will not spend to gain an idiot’s praise;
            Or to make sport
      For some slight Puisne of the Inns of Court.
          Then, worthy Stafford, say,
          How shall we spend the day?
            With what delights
            Shorten the nights?
      When from this tumult we are got secure,
        Where mirth with all her freedom goes,
          Yet shall no finger lose;
    Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure?

            There from the tree
      We’ll cherries pluck, and pick the strawberry;
            And every day
      Go see the wholesome country girls make hay,
          Whose brown hath lovelier grace
          Than any painted face
            That I do know
            Hyde Park can show:
      Where I had rather gain a kiss than meet
        (Though some of them in greater state
          Might court my love with plate)
    The beauties of the Cheap, and wives of Lombard Street.

            But think upon
      Some other pleasures: these to me are none.
            Why do I prate
      Of women, that are things against my fate!
          I never mean to wed
          That torture to my bed:
            My Muse is she
            My love shall be.
      Let clowns get wealth and heirs: when I am gone
        And that great bugbear, grisly Death,
          Shall take this idle breath,
    If I a poem leave, that poem is my son.

            Of this no more!
      We’ll rather taste the bright Pomona’s store.
            No fruit shall ’scape
      Our palates, from the damson to the grape.
          Then, full, we’ll seek a shade,
          And hear what music’s made;
            How Philomel
            Her tale doth tell,
      And how the other birds do fill the quire;
        The thrush and blackbird lend their throats,
          Warbling melodious notes;
    We will all sports enjoy which others but desire.

            Ours is the sky,
      Where at what fowl we please our hawk shall fly:
            Nor will we spare
      To hunt the crafty fox or timorous hare;
          But let our hounds run loose
          In any ground they’ll choose;
            The buck shall fall,
            The stag, and all.
      Our pleasures must from their own warrants be,
        For to my Muse, if not to me,
          I’m sure all game is free:
    Heaven, earth, are all but parts of her great royalty.

            And when we mean
      To taste of Bacchus’ blessings now and then,
            And drink by stealth
      A cup or two to noble Barkley’s health,
          I’ll take my pipe and try
          The Phrygian melody;
            Which he that hears,
            Lets through his ears
      A madness to distemper all the brain:
        Then I another pipe will take
          And Doric music make,
    To civilize with graver notes our wits again.




SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT

1606-1668


_301._ _Aubade_

    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!


_302._ _To a Mistress Dying_

    _Lover._ Your beauty, ripe and calm and fresh
              As eastern summers are,
            Must now, forsaking time and flesh,
              Add light to some small star.


    _Philosopher._ Whilst she yet lives, were stars decay’d,
                    Their light by hers relief might find;
                  But Death will lead her to a shade
                    Where Love is cold and Beauty blind.

    _Lover._ Lovers, whose priests all poets are,
              Think every mistress, when she dies,
            Is changed at least into a star:
              And who dares doubt the poets wise?

    _Philosopher._ But ask not bodies doom’d to die
                    To what abode they go;
                  Since Knowledge is but Sorrow’s spy,
                    It is not safe to know.


_303._ _Praise and Prayer_

    Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds,
      The diff’ring world’s agreeing sacrifice;
    Where Heaven divided faiths united finds:
      But Prayer in various discord upward flies.

    For Prayer the ocean is where diversely
      Men steer their course, each to a sev’ral coast;
    Where all our interests so discordant be
      That half beg winds by which the rest are lost.

    By Penitence when we ourselves forsake,
      ’Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven;
    In Praise we nobly give what God may take,
      And are, without a beggar’s blush, forgiven.




EDMUND WALLER

1606-1687


_304._ _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 ribband bound,
    Take all the rest the sun goes round!


_305._ _Go, lovely Rose_

        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!


_306._ _Old Age_

    The seas are quiet when the winds give o’er;
    So calm are we when passions are no more.
    For then we know how vain it was to boast
    Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
    Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
    Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

    The soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d,
    Lets in new light through chinks that Time hath made:
    Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
    As they draw near to their eternal home.
    Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
    That stand upon the threshold of the new.



JOHN MILTON

1608-1674


_307._ _Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity_

    It was the Winter wilde,
    While the Heav’n-born-childe,
      All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
    Nature in aw to him
    Had doff’t her gawdy 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 woo’s the gentle Air
      To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,
    And on her naked shame,
    Pollute with sinfull blame,
      The Saintly Vail of Maiden white to throw,
    Confounded, that her Makers eyes
    Should look so neer upon her foul deformities.

    But he her fears to cease,
    Sent down the meek-eyd Peace,
      She crown’d with Olive green, came softly sliding
    Down through the turning sphear
    His ready Harbinger,
      With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,
    And waving wide her mirtle wand,
    She strikes a universall Peace through Sea and Land.

    No War, or Battails sound
    Was heard the World around,
      The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
    The hookèd Chariot stood
    Unstain’d with hostile blood,
      The Trumpet spake not to the armèd throng,
    And Kings sate still with awfull eye,
    As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

    But peacefull was the night
    Wherin the Prince of light
      His raign of peace upon the earth began:
    The Windes with wonder whist,
    Smoothly the waters kist,
      Whispering new joyes to the milde Ocean,
    Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
    While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave.


    The Stars with deep amaze
    Stand fixt in stedfast gaze,
      Bending one way their pretious influence,
    And will not take their flight,
    For all the morning light,
      Or Lucifer that often warn’d them thence;
    But in their glimmering Orbs did glow,
    Untill their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

    And though the shady gloom
    Had given day her room,
      The Sun himself with-held his wonted speed,
    And hid his head for shame,
    As his inferiour flame,
      The new enlightn’d world no more should need;
    He saw a greater Sun appear
    Then his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear.

    The Shepherds on the Lawn,
    Or ere the point of dawn,
      Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;
    Full little thought they than,
    That the mighty Pan
      Was kindly com to live with them below;
    Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep,
    Was all that did their silly thoughts so busie keep.

    When such musick sweet
    Their hearts and ears did greet,
      As never was by mortall finger strook,
    Divinely-warbled voice
    Answering the stringèd noise,
      As all their souls in blisfull rapture took
    The Air such pleasure loth to lose,
    With thousand echo’s still prolongs each heav’nly 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 don,
      And that her raign had here its last fulfilling;
    She knew such harmony alone
    Could hold all Heav’n and Earth in happier union.

    At last surrounds their sight
    A Globe of circular light,
      That with long beams the shame-fac’t night array’d,
    The helmèd Cherubim
    And sworded Seraphim,
      Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid,
    Harping in loud and solemn quire,
    With unexpressive notes to Heav’ns new-born Heir.

    Such musick (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-ballanc’t world on hinges hung,
    And cast the dark foundations deep,
    And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.

    Ring out ye Crystall sphears,
    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 Heav’ns deep Organ blow
    And with your ninefold harmony
    Make up full consort to th’Angelike symphony.


    For if such holy Song
    Enwrap our fancy long,
      Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold,
    And speckl’d vanity
    Will sicken soon and die,
      And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould,
    And Hell it self will pass away,
    And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

    Yea Truth, and Justice then
    Will down return to men,
      Th’enameld Arras of the Rain-bow wearing,
    And Mercy set between,
    Thron’d in Celestiall sheen,
      With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing,
    And Heav’n as at som festivall,
    Will open wide the Gates of her high Palace Hall.

    But wisest Fate sayes 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 glorifie:
    Yet first to those ychain’d in sleep,
    The wakefull trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

    With such a horrid clang
    As on mount Sinai rang
      While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:
    The agèd Earth agast
    With terrour of that blast,
      Shall from the surface to the center shake;
    When at the worlds last session,
    The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne.


    And then at last our bliss
    Full and perfect is,
      But now begins; for from this happy day
    Th’old Dragon under ground
    In straiter limits bound,
      Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,
    And wrath to see his Kingdom fail,
    Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.

    The Oracles are dumm,
    No voice or hideous humm
      Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving.
    Apollo from his shrine
    Can no more divine,
      With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos leaving.
    No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,
    Inspire’s the pale-ey’d Priest from the prophetic cell.

    The lonely mountains o’re,
    And the resounding shore,
      A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;
    From haunted spring, and dale
    Edg’d with poplar pale,
      The parting Genius is with sighing sent,
    With flowre-inwov’n tresses torn
    The Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

    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 Flamins at their service quaint;
    And the chill Marble seems to sweat,
    While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.


    Peor, and Baalim,
    Forsake their Temples dim,
      With that twise-batter’d god of Palestine,
    And moonèd Ashtaroth,
    Heav’ns Queen and Mother both,
      Now sits not girt with Tapers holy shine,
    The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,
    In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thamuz mourn.

    And sullen Moloch fled,
    Hath left in shadows dred,
      His burning Idol all of blackest hue,
    In vain with Cymbals ring,
    They call the grisly king,
      In dismall dance about the furnace blue;
    The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
    Isis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis hast.

    Nor is Osiris seen
    In Memphian Grove, or Green,
      Trampling the unshowr’d Grasse with lowings loud:
    Nor can he be at rest
    Within his sacred chest,
      Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud,
    In vain with Timbrel’d Anthems dark
    The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshipt Ark.

    He feels from Juda’s Land
    The dredded Infants hand,
      The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
    Nor all the gods beside,
    Longer dare abide,
      Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
    Our Babe to shew his Godhead true,
    Can in his swadling bands controul the damnèd crew,
    So when the Sun in bed,
    Curtain’d with cloudy red,
      Pillows his chin upon an Orient wave,
    The flocking shadows pale,
    Troop to th’infernall jail,
      Each fetter’d Ghost slips to his severall grave,
    And the yellow-skirted Fayes,
    Fly after the Night-steeds, leaving their Moon-lov’d maze.

    But see the Virgin blest,
    Hath laid her Babe to rest.
      Time is our tedious Song should here have ending,
    Heav’ns youngest teemèd Star,
    Hath fixt her polisht Car,
      Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending:
    And all about the Courtly Stable,
    Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.


_308._ _On Time_

    Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
    Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
    Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;
    And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,
    Which is no more then what is false and vain,
    And meerly mortal dross;
    So little is our loss,
    So little is thy gain.
    For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
    And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d,
    Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
    With an individual kiss;
    And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
    When every thing that is sincerely good
    And perfectly divine,
    With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
    About the supreme Throne
    Of him, t’whose happy-making sight alone,
    When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall clime,
    Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,
    Attir’d with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
      Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.


_309._ _At a Solemn Musick_

    Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav’ns joy,
    Sphear-born harmonious Sisters, Voice, and Vers,
    Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ
    Dead things with inbreath’d sense able to pierce,
    And to our high-rais’d phantasie present,
    That undisturbèd Song of pure content,
    Ay sung before the saphire-colour’d throne
    To him that sits theron
    With Saintly shout, and solemn Jubily,
    Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
    Their loud up-lifted Angel trumpets blow,
    And the Cherubick host in thousand quires
    Touch their immortal Harps of golden wires,
    With those just Spirits that wear victorious Palms,
    Hymns devout and holy Psalms
    Singing everlastingly;
    That we on Earth with undiscording voice
    May rightly answer that melodious noise;
    As once we did, till disproportion’d sin
    Jarr’d against natures chime, and with harsh din
    Broke the fair musick that all creatures made
    To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway’d
    In perfect Diapason, whilst they stood
    In first obedience, and their state of good.
    O may we soon again renew that Song,
    And keep in tune with Heav’n, till God ere long
    To his celestial consort us unite,
    To live with him, and sing in endles morn of light.


_310._ _L’Allegro_

    Hence loathèd Melancholy
      Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,
    In Stygian Cave forlorn
      ’Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy.
    Find out som uncouth cell,
      Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings,
    And the night-Raven sings;
      There, under Ebon shades, and low-brow’d Rocks,
    As ragged as thy Locks,
      In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
    But com thou Goddes fair and free,
    In Heav’n ycleap’d Euphrosyne,
    And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
    Whom lovely Venus, at a birth
    With two sister Graces more
    To Ivy-crownèd Bacchus bore;
    Or whether (as som Sager sing)
    The frolick Wind that breathes the Spring,
    Zephir with Aurora playing,
    As he met her once a Maying,
    There on Beds of Violets blew,
    And fresh-blown Roses washt in dew,
    Fill’d her with thee a daughter fair,
    So bucksom, blith, and debonair.
      Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
    Jest and youthful Jollity,
    Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
    Nods, and Becks, and Wreathèd Smiles,
    Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
    And love to live in dimple sleek;
    Sport that wrincled Care derides,
    And Laughter holding both his sides.
    Com, and trip it as ye go
    On the light fantastick 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 crue
    To live with her, and live with thee,
    In unreprovèd pleasures free;
    To hear the Lark begin his flight,
    And singing startle the dull night,
    From his watch-towre in the skies,
    Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
    Then to com in spight 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 darknes thin,
    And to the stack, or the Barn dore,
    Stoutly struts his Dames before,
    Oft listening how the Hounds and horn
    Chearly rouse the slumbring morn,
    From the side of som Hoar Hill,
    Through the high wood echoing shrill.
    Som time walking not unseen
    By Hedge-row Elms, on Hillocks green,
    Right against the Eastern gate,
    Wher the great Sun begins his state,
    Rob’d in flames, and Amber light,
    The clouds in thousand Liveries dight.
    While the Plowman neer at hand,
    Whistles ore the Furrow’d Land,
    And the Milkmaid singeth blithe,
    And the Mower whets his sithe,
    And every Shepherd tells his tale
    Under the Hawthorn in the dale.
    Streit mine eye hath caught new pleasures
    Whilst the Lantskip round it measures,
    Russet Lawns, and Fallows Gray,
    Where the nibling flocks do stray,
    Mountains on whose barren brest
    The labouring clouds do often rest:
    Meadows trim with Daisies pide,
    Shallow Brooks, and Rivers wide.
    Towers, and Battlements it sees
    Boosom’d high in tufted Trees,
    Wher perhaps som beauty lies,
    The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
    Hard by, a Cottage chimney smokes,
    From betwixt two agèd Okes,
    Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
    Are at their savory dinner set
    Of Hearbs, and other Country Messes,
    Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
    And then in haste her Bowre she leaves,
    With Thestylis to bind the Sheaves;
    Or if the earlier season lead
    To the tann’d Haycock in the Mead,
    Som times with secure delight
    The up-land Hamlets will invite,
    When the merry Bells ring round,
    And the jocond rebecks sound
    To many a youth, and many a maid,
    Dancing in the Chequer’d shade;
    And young and old com forth to play
    On a Sunshine Holyday,
    Till the live-long day-light fail,
    Then to the Spicy Nut-brown Ale,
    With stones told of many a feat,
    How Faery Mab the junkets eat,
    She was pincht, and pull’d she sed,
    And he by Friars Lanthorn led
    Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,
    To ern his Cream-bowle duly set,
    When in one night, ere glimps of morn,
    His shadowy Flale hath thresh’d the Corn
    That ten day-labourers could not end,
    Then lies him down the Lubbar Fend,
    And stretch’d out all the Chimney’s length,
    Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
    And Crop-full out of dores he flings,
    Ere the first Cock his Mattin rings.
    Thus don the Tales, to bed they creep,
    By whispering Windes soon lull’d asleep.
      Towred Cities please us then,
    And the busie humm of men,
    Where throngs of Knights and Barons bold,
    In weeds of Peace high triumphs hold,
    With store of Ladies, whose bright eies
    Rain influence, and judge the prise
    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 youthfull Poets dream
    On Summer eeves by haunted stream.
    Then to the well-trod stage anon,
    If Jonsons learnèd Sock be on,
    Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe,
    Warble his native Wood-notes wilde,
    And ever against eating Cares,
    Lap me in soft Lydian Aires,
    Married to immortal verse
    Such as the meeting soul may pierce
    In notes, with many a winding bout
    Of linckèd sweetnes long drawn out,
    With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
    The melting voice through mazes running;
    Untwisting all the chains that ty
    The hidden soul of harmony.
    That Orpheus self may heave his head
    From golden slumber on a bed
    Of heapt Elysian flowres, and hear
    Such streins as would have won the ear
    Of Pluto, to have quite set free
    His half regain’d Eurydice.
    These delights, if thou canst give,
    Mirth with thee, I mean to live.


_311._ _Il Penseroso_

    Hence vain deluding joyes,
      The brood of folly without father bred,
    How little you bested,
      Or fill the fixèd mind with all your toyes;
    Dwell in som idle brain,
      And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
    As thick and numberless
      As the gay motes that people the Sun Beams,
    Or likest hovering dreams
      The fickle Pensioners of Morpheus train.
    But hail thou Goddes, sage and holy,
    Hail divinest Melancholy,
    Whose Saintly visage is too bright
    To hit the Sense of human sight;
    And therfore to our weaker view,
    Ore laid with black staid Wisdoms hue.
    Black, but such as in esteem,
    Prince Memnons sister might beseem,
    Or that Starr’d Ethiope Queen that strove
    To set her beauties praise above
    The Sea Nymphs, and their powers offended.
    Yet thou art higher far descended,
    Thee bright-hair’d Vesta long of yore,
    To solitary Saturn bore;
    His daughter she (in Saturns raign,
    Such mixture was not held a stain)
    Oft in glimmering Bowres, and glades
    He met her, and in secret shades
    Of woody Ida’s inmost grove,
    Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
    Com pensive Nun, devout and pure,
    Sober, stedfast, and demure,
    All in a robe of darkest grain,
    Flowing with majestick train,
    And sable stole of Cipres Lawn,
    Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
    Com, but keep thy wonted state,
    With eev’n step, and musing gate,
    And looks commercing with the skies,
    Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
    There held in holy passion still,
    Forget thy self to Marble, till
    With a sad Leaden downward cast,
    Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
    And joyn with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
    Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
    And hears the Muses in a ring,
    Ay round about Joves Altar sing.
    And adde to these retirèd Leasure,
    That in trim Gardens takes his pleasure;
    But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,
    Him that yon soars on golden wing,
    Guiding the fiery-wheelèd throne,
    The Cherub Contemplation,
    And the mute Silence hist along,
    ’Less Philomel will daign a Song,
    In her sweetest, saddest plight,
    Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
    While Cynthia checks her Dragon yoke,
    Gently o’re th’accustom’d Oke;
    Sweet Bird that shunn’st the noise of folly,
    Most musicall, most melancholy!
    Thee Chauntress oft the Woods among,
    I woo to hear thy eeven-Song;
    And missing thee, I walk unseen
    On the dry smooth-shaven Green,
    To behold the wandring Moon,
    Riding neer her highest noon,
    Like one that had bin led astray
    Through the Heav’ns wide pathles way;
    And oft, as if her head she bow’d,
    Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
    Oft on a Plat of rising ground,
    I hear the far-off Curfeu sound
    Over som wide-water’d shoar,
    Swinging slow with sullen roar;
    Or if the Ayr will not permit,
    Som still removèd 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 Belmans drousie charm,
    To bless the dores from nightly harm:
    Or let my Lamp at midnight hour,
    Be seen in som high lonely Towr,
    Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
    With thrice great Hermes, or unsphear
    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 Dæmons that are found
    In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
    Whose power hath a true consent
    With Planet, or with Element.
    Som time let Gorgeous Tragedy
    In Scepter’d Pall com sweeping by,
    Presenting Thebs, or Pelops line,
    Or the tale of Troy divine.
    Or what (though rare) of later age,
    Ennoblèd hath the Buskind stage.
      But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
    Might raise Musæeus 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 Canace to wife,
    That own’d the vertuous Ring and Glass,
    And of the wondrous Hors of Brass,
    On which the Tartar King did ride;
    And if ought els, great Bards beside,
    In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
    Of Turneys and of Trophies hung;
    Of Forests, and inchantments drear,
    Where more is meant then meets the ear.
    Thus night oft see me in thy pale career,
    Till civil-suited Morn appeer,
    Not trickt and frounc’t as she was wont,
    With the Attick Boy to hunt,
    But Cherchef’t in a comly Cloud,
    While rocking Winds are Piping loud,
    Or usher’d with a shower still,
    When the gust hath blown his fill,
    Ending on the russling Leaves,
    With minute drops from off the Eaves.
    And when the Sun begins to fling
    His flaring beams, me Goddes bring
    To archèd walks of twilight groves,
    And shadows brown that Sylvan loves,
    Of Pine, or monumental Oake,
    Where the rude Ax with heavèd stroke,
    Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
    Or fright them from their hallow’d haunt.
    There in close covert by som Brook,
    Where no profaner eye may look,
    Hide me from Day’s garish eie,
    While the Bee with Honied thie,
    That at her flowry work doth sing,
    And the Waters murmuring
    With such consort as they keep,
    Entice the dewy-feather’d Sleep;
    And let som strange mysterious dream,
    Wave at his Wings in Airy stream,
    Of lively portrature display’d,
    Softly on my eye-lids laid.
    And as I wake, sweet musick breath
    Above, about, or underneath,
    Sent by som spirit to mortals good,
    Or th’unseen Genius of the Wood.
      But let my due feet never fail,
    To walk the studious Cloysters pale,
    And love the high embowèd Roof,
    With antick Pillars massy proof,
    And storied Windows richly dight,
    Casting a dimm religious light.
    There let the pealing Organ blow,
    To the full voic’d Quire below,
    In Service high, and Anthems cleer,
    As may with sweetnes, through mine ear,
    Dissolve me into extasies,
    And bring all Heav’n before mine eyes.
    And may at last my weary age
    Find out the peacefull hermitage,
    The Hairy Gown and Mossy Cell,
    Where I may sit and rightly spell
    Of every Star that Heav’n doth shew,
    And every Herb that sips the dew;
    Till old experience do attain
    To somthing like Prophetic strain.
    These pleasures Melancholy give,
    And I with thee will choose to live.


_312._ _From ‘Arcades’_

    O’re the smooth enameld green
    Where no print of step hath been,
        Follow me as I sing,
        And touch the warbled string.
    Under the shady roof
    Of branching Elm Star-proof,
        Follow me,
    I will bring you where she sits
    Clad in splendor as befits
        Her deity.
    Such a rural Queen
    All Arcadia hath not seen.


_From ‘Comus’_


_313._ _i_

    The Star that bids the Shepherd fold,
    Now the top of Heav’n doth hold,
    And the gilded Car of Day,
    His glowing Axle doth allay
    In the steep Atlantick stream,
    And the slope Sun his upward beam
    Shoots against the dusky Pole,
    Pacing toward the other gole
    Of his Chamber in the East.
    Mean while welcom Joy, and Feast,
    Midnight shout, and revelry,
    Tipsie dance, and Jollity.
    Braid your Locks with rosie Twine
    Dropping odours, dropping Wine.
    Rigor now is gon to bed,
    And Advice with scrupulous head,
    Strict Age, and sowre Severity,
    With their grave Saws in slumber ly.
    We that are of purer fire
    Imitate the Starry Quire,
    Who in their nightly watchfull Sphears,
    Lead in swift round the Months and Years.
    The Sounds, and Seas with all their finny drove
    Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move,
    And on the Tawny Sands and Shelves,
    Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves;
    By dimpled Brook, and Fountain brim,
    The Wood-Nymphs deckt with Daisies trim,
    Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
    What hath night to do with sleep?
    Night hath better sweets to prove,
    Venus now wakes, and wak’ns Love....
    Com, knit hands, and beat the ground,
    In a light fantastick round.


_314._ _ii_

ECHO

        Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv’st unseen
                Within thy airy shell
              By slow Meander’s margent green,
        And in the violet imbroider’d vale
              Where the love-lorn Nightingale
      Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well.
      Canst thou not tell me of a gentle Pair
              That likest thy Narcissus are?
                O if thou have
              Hid them in som flowry Cave,
                Tell me but where
      Sweet Queen of Parly, Daughter of the Sphear!
      So maist thou be translated to the skies,
    And give resounding grace to all Heav’ns Harmonies?


_315. iii_

SABRINA

_The Spirit sings:_

    Sabrina fair
      Listen where thou art sitting
    Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
      In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
    The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
      Listen for dear honour’s sake,
      Goddess of the silver lake,
                        Listen and save!

    Listen and appear to us,
    In name of great Oceanus,
    By the earth-shaking Neptune’s mace,
    And Tethys grave majestick pace,
    By hoary Nereus wrincled look,
    And the Carpathian wisards hook,
    By scaly Tritons winding shell,
    And old sooth-saying Glaucus spell,
    By Leucothea’s lovely hands,
    And her son that rules the strands,
    By Thetis tinsel-slipper’d feet,
    And the Songs of Sirens sweet,
    By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb,
    And fair Ligea’s golden comb,
    Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks
    Sleeking her soft alluring locks,
    By all the Nymphs that nightly dance
    Upon thy streams with wily glance,
    Rise, rise, and heave thy rosie head
    From thy coral-pav’n bed,
    And bridle in thy headlong wave,
    Till thou our summons answered have.
                        Listen and save!

_Sabrina replies:_

      By the rushy-fringèd bank,
    Where grows the Willow and the Osier dank,
      My sliding Chariot stayes,
    Thick set with Agat, and the azurn sheen
    Of Turkis blew, and Emrauld green
      That in the channell strayes,
    Whilst from off the waters fleet
    Thus I set my printless feet
    O’re the Cowslips Velvet head,
      That bends not as I tread,
    Gentle swain at thy request
      I am here.


_316._ _iv_

_The Spirit epiloguizes:_

    To the Ocean now I fly,
    And those happy climes that ly
    Where day never shuts his eye,
    Up in the broad fields of the sky:
    There I suck the liquid ayr
    All amidst the Gardens fair
    Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
    That sing about the golden tree:
    Along the crispèd shades and bowres
    Revels the spruce and jocond Spring,
    The Graces, and the rosie-boosom’d Howres,
    Thither all their bounties bring,
    That there eternal Summer dwels,
    And West winds, with musky wing
    About the cedar’n alleys fling
    Nard, and Cassia’s balmy smels.
    Iris there with humid bow,
    Waters the odorous banks that blow
    Flowers of more mingled hew
    Than her purfl’d scarf can shew,
    And drenches with Elysian dew
    (List mortals, if your ears be true)
    Beds of Hyacinth, and roses
    Where young Adonis oft reposes,
    Waxing well of his deep wound
    In slumber soft, and on the ground
    Sadly sits th’ Assyrian Queen;
    But far above in spangled sheen
    Celestial Cupid her fam’d son advanc’t,
    Holds his dear Psyche sweet intranc’t
    After her wandring labours long,
    Till free consent the gods among
    Make her his eternal Bride,
    And from her fair unspotted side
    Two blissful twins are to be born,
    Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.
      But now my task is smoothly don,
    I can fly, or I can run
    Quickly to the green earths end,
    Where the bow’d welkin slow doth bend,
    And from thence can soar as soon
    To the corners of the Moon.
      Mortals that would follow me,
    Love vertue, she alone is free.
    She can teach ye how to clime
    Higher then the Spheary chime;
    Or if Vertue feeble were,
    Heav’n it self would stoop to her.


_317._ _Lycidas_

_A Lament for a friend drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish
Seas, 1637_

    Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
    Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,
    I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
    And with forc’d fingers rude,
    Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
    Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
    Compels 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 rhyme.
    He must not flote upon his watry bear
    Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
    Without the meed of som melodious tear.
      Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well,
    That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
    Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string.
    Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
    So may som gentle Muse
    With lucky words favour my destin’d Urn,
    And as he passes turn,
    And bid fair peace be to my sable shrowd.
    For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
    Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.
      Together both, ere the high Lawns appear’d
    Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
    We drove a field, and both together heard
    What time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
    Batt’ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
    Oft till the Star that rose, at Ev’ning, bright
    Toward Heav’ns descent had slop’d his westering wheel.
    Mean while the Rural ditties were not mute,
    Temper’d to th’Oaten Flute;
    Rough Satyrs danc’d, and Fauns with clov’n heel,
    From the glad sound would not be absent long,
    And old Damætas lov’d to hear our song
      But O the heavy change, now thou art gon,
    Now thou art gon, and never must return!
    Thee Shepherd, thee the Woods, and desert Caves,
    With wilde Thyme and the gadding Vine o’regrown,
    And all their echoes mourn.
    The Willows, and the Hazle Copses green,
    Shall now no more be seen,
    Fanning their joyous Leaves to thy soft layes.
    As killing as the Canker to the Rose,
    Or Taint-worm to the weanling Herds that graze,
    Or Frost to Flowers, that their gay wardrop wear,
    When first the White thorn blows;
    Such, Lycidas, thy loss to Shepherds ear.
      Where were ye Nymphs when the remorseless deep
    Clos’d o’re the head of your lov’d Lycidas?
    For neither were ye playing on the steep,
    Where your old Bards, the famous Druids ly,
    Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
    Nor yet where Deva spreads her wisard stream:
    Ay me, I fondly dream!
    Had ye bin there--for what could that have don?
    What could the Muse her self that Orpheus bore,
    The Muse her self, for her inchanting son
    Whom Universal nature did lament,
    When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
    His goary visage down the stream was sent,
    Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.
      Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
    To tend the homely slighted Shepherds trade,
    And strictly meditate the thankles Muse,
    Were it not better don as others use,
    To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
    Or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair?
    Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
    (That last infirmity of Noble mind)
    To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes;
    But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find,
    And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
    Comes the blind Fury with th’abhorrèd shears,
    And slits the thin spun life. But not the praise,
    Phœbus repli’d, and touch’d my trembling ears;
    Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
    Nor in the glistering foil
    Set off to th’world, nor in broad rumour lies,
    But lives and spreds aloft by those pure eyes,
    And perfet witnes of all judging Jove;
    As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
    Of so much fame in Heav’n expect thy meed.
      O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour’d floud,
    Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown’d with vocall reeds,
    That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
    But now my Oate proceeds,
    And listens to the Herald of the Sea
    That came in Neptune’s plea,
    He ask’d the Waves, and ask’d the Fellon winds,
    What hard mishap hath doom’d this gentle swain?
    And question’d every gust of rugged wings
    That blows from off each beakèd Promontory,
    They knew not of his story,
    And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
    That not a blast was from his dungeon stray’d,
    The Ayr was calm, and on the level brine,
    Sleek Panope with all her sisters play’d.
    It was that fatall and perfidious Bark
    Built in th’eclipse, and rigg’d 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 inscrib’d 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 Keyes he bore of metals twain,
    (The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain)
    He shook his Miter’d locks, and stern bespake,
    How well could I have spar’d for thee, young swain,
    Anow of such as for their bellies sake,
    Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?
    Of other care they little reck’ning make,
    Then how to scramble at the shearers feast,
    And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
    Blind mouthes! that scarce themselves know how to hold
    A Sheep-hook, or have learn’d ought els the least
    That to the faithfull Herdmans 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 swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
    Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
    Besides what the grim Woolf with privy paw
    Daily devours apace, and nothing sed,
    But that two-handed engine at the door,
    Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
      Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
    That shrunk thy streams; Return Sicilian Muse,
    And call the Vales, and bid them hither cast
    Their Bels, and Flourets of a thousand hues.
    Ye valleys low where the milde whispers use,
    Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
    On whose fresh lap the swart Star sparely looks,
    Throw hither all your quaint enameld eyes,
    That on the green terf suck the honied showres,
    And purple all the ground with vernal flowres.
    Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies.
    The tufted Crow-toe, and pale Gessamine,
    The white Pink, and the Pansie freakt with jeat,
    The glowing Violet.
    The Musk-rose, and the well attir’d Woodbine.
    With Cowslips wan that hang the pensive hed,
    And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
    Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,
    And Daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
    To strew the Laureat 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 ere thy bones are hurld,
    Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
    Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
    Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;
    Or whether thou to our moist vows deny’d,
    Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
    Where the great vision of the guarded Mount
    Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold;
    Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth.
    And, O ye Dolphins, waft the haples youth.
      Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more,
    For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
    Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar,
    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 walk’d the waves
    Where other groves, and other streams along,
    With Nectar pure his oozy Lock’s he laves,
    And hears the unexpressive nuptiall 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;
    Hence forth 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 th’Okes and rills,
    While the still morn went out with Sandals gray,
    He touch’d the tender stops of various Quills,
    With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay:
    And now the Sun had stretch’d out all the hills,
    And now was dropt into the Western bay;
    At last he rose, and twitch’d his Mantle blew:
    To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new.


_317._* _To the Lady Margaret Ley_

    Daughter to that good Earl, once President
      Of Englands Counsel, and her Treasury,
      Who liv’d in both, unstain’d with gold or fee,
      And left them both, more in himself content,
    Till the sad breaking of that Parlament
      Broke him, as that dishonest victory
      At Chæronèa, fatal to liberty
      Kil’d with report that Old man eloquent,
    Though later born, then to have known the dayes
      Wherin your Father flourisht, yet by you
      Madam, me thinks I see him living yet;
    So well your words his noble vertues praise,
      That all both judge you to relate them true,
      And to possess them, Honour’d Margaret.


_318._ _On His Blindness_

    When I consider how my light is spent,
      E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
      And that one Talent which is death to hide,
      Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
    To serve therewith my Maker, and present
      My true account, least he returning chide,
      Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,
      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 milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
    Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
      And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
      They also serve who only stand and waite.


_319._ _To Mr. Lawrence_

    Lawrence of vertuous Father vertuous Son,
      Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are mire,
      Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
      Help wast a sullen day; what may be won
    From the hard Season gaining: time will run
      On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
      The frozen earth; and cloth in fresh attire
      The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow’d nor spun.
    What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
      Of Attick tast, with Wine, whence we may rise
      To hear the Lute well toucht, or artfull voice
    Warble immortal Notes and Tuskan Ayre?
      He who of those delights can judge, and spare
      To interpose them oft, is not unwise.


_320._ _To Cyriack Skinner_

    Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench
      Of Brittish Themis, with no mean applause
      Pronounc’t and in his volumes taught our Lawes,
      Which others at their Barr so often wrench:
    To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
      In mirth, that after no repenting drawes;
      Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
      And what the Swede intend, and what the French.
    To measure life, learn thou betimes, and know
      Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;
      For other things mild Heav’n a time ordains,
    And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
      That with superfluous burden loads the day,
      And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.


_321._ _On His Deceased Wife_

    Methought I saw my late espousèd Saint
      Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
      Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave,
      Rescu’d from death by force though pale and faint.
    Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint,
      Purification in the old Law did save,
      And such, as yet once more I trust to have
      Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
    Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
      Her face was vail’d, yet to my fancied sight,
      Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin’d
    So clear, as in no face with more delight.
      But O as to embrace me she enclin’d
      I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night.


_322._ _Light_

    Hail holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born,
    Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam
    May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light,
    And never but in unapproachèd light
    Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,
    Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
    Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
    Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,
    Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
    Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest
    The rising world of waters dark and deep,
    Won from the void and formless infinite.
    Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
    Escap’t the Stygian Pool, though long detain’d
    In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
    Through utter and through middle darkness borne
    With other notes then to th’ Orphean Lyre
    I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
    Taught by the heav’nly Muse to venture down
    The dark descent, and up to reascend,
    Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
    And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou
    Revisit’st not these eyes, that rowle in vain
    To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
    So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,
    Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more
    Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
    Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill,
    Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
    Thee _Sion_ and the flowrie Brooks beneath
    That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow,
    Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget
    Those other two equal’d with me in Fate,
    So were I equal’d with them in renown.
    Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
    And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old.
    Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move
    Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird
    Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid
    Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year
    Seasons return, but not to me returns
    Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn,
    Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,
    Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
    But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark
    Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men
    Cut off, and for the Book of knowledg fair
    Presented with a Universal blanc
    Of Natures works to mee expung’d and ras’d,
    And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out.
    So much the rather thou Celestial light
    Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
    Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
    Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
    Of things invisible to mortal sight.


_From ‘Samson Agonistes’_


_323._ _i_

    Oh how comely it is and how reviving
    To the Spirits of just men long opprest!
    When God into the hands of thir deliverer
    Puts invincible might
    To quell the mighty of the Earth, th’ oppressour,
    The brute and boist’rous force of violent men
    Hardy and industrious to support
    Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue
    The righteous and all such as honour Truth;
    He all thir Ammunition
    And feats of War defeats
    With plain Heroic magnitude of mind
    And celestial vigour arm’d,
    Thir Armories and Magazins contemns,
    Renders them useless, while
    With wingèd expedition
    Swift as the lightning glance he executes
    His errand on the wicked, who surpris’d
    Lose thir defence distracted and amaz’d.


_324._ _ii_

    All is best, though we oft doubt,
    What th’ unsearchable dispose
    Of highest wisdom brings about,
    And ever best found in the close.
    Oft he seems to hide his face,
    But unexpectedly returns
    And to his faithful Champion hath in place
    Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns
    And all that band them to resist
    His uncontroulable intent.
    His servants he with new acquist
    Of true experience from this great event
    With peace and consolation hath dismist,
    And calm of mind all passion spent.




SIR JOHN SUCKLING

1609-1642


_325._ _A Doubt of Martyrdom_

    O for some honest lover’s ghost,
      Some kind unbodied post
        Sent from the shades below!
        I strangely long to know
    Whether the noble chaplets wear
    Those that their mistress’ scorn did bear
        Or those that were used kindly.

    For whatsoe’er they tell us here
      To make those sufferings dear,
        ’Twill there, I fear, be found
        That to the being crown’d
    T’ have loved alone will not suffice,
    Unless we also have been wise
        And have our loves enjoy’d.

    What posture can we think him in
      That, here unloved, again
        Departs, and ’s thither gone
        Where each sits by his own?
    Or how can that Elysium be
    Where I my mistress still must see
        Circled in other’s arms?


    For there the judges all are just,
      And Sophonisba must
        Be his whom she held dear,
        Not his who loved her here.
    The sweet Philoclea, since she died,
    Lies by her Pirocles his side,
        Not by Amphialus.

    Some bays, perchance, or myrtle bough
      For difference crowns the brow
        Of those kind souls that were
        The noble martyrs here:
    And if that be the only odds
    (As who can tell?), ye kinder gods,
        Give me the woman here!


_326._ _The Constant Lover_

    Out upon it, I have loved
      Three whole days together!
    And am like to love three more,
      If it prove fair weather.

    Time shall moult away his wings
      Ere he shall discover
    In the whole wide world again
      Such a constant lover.

    But the spite on ’t is, no praise
      Is due at all to me:
    Love with me had made no stays,
      Had it any been but she.

    Had it any been but she,
      And that very face,
    There had been at least ere this
      A dozen dozen in her place.


_327._ _Why so Pale and Wan?_

    Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
            Prithee, why so pale?
    Will, when looking well can’t move her,
            Looking ill prevail?
            Prithee, why so pale?

    Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
            Prithee, why so mute?
    Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
            Saying nothing do’t?
            Prithee, why so mute?

    Quit, quit for shame! This will not move;
            This cannot take her.
    If of herself she will not love,
            Nothing can make her:
            The devil take her!


_328._ _When, Dearest, I but think of Thee_

    When, dearest, I but think of thee,
    Methinks all things that lovely be
      Are present, and my soul delighted:
    For beauties that from worth arise
    Are like the grace of deities,
      Still present with us, tho’ unsighted.

    Thus while I sit and sigh the day
    With all his borrow’d lights away,
      Till night’s black wings do overtake me,
    Thinking on thee, thy beauties then,
    As sudden lights do sleepy men,
      So they by their bright rays awake me.


    Thus absence dies, and dying proves
    No absence can subsist with loves
      That do partake of fair perfection:
    Since in the darkest night they may
    By love’s quick motion find a way
      To see each other by reflection.

    The waving sea can with each flood
    Bathe some high promont that hath stood
      Far from the main up in the river:
    O think not then but love can do
    As much! for that’s an ocean too,
      Which flows not every day, but ever!




SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE

1608-1666


_329._ _A Rose_

    Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon.
    What boots a life which in such haste forsakes thee?
    Thou’rt wondrous frolic, being to die so soon,
    And passing proud a little colour makes thee.
    If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives,
    Know then the thing that swells thee is thy bane;
    For the same beauty doth, in bloody leaves,
    The sentence of thy early death contain.
    Some clown’s coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flower,
    If by the careless plough thou shalt be torn;
    And many Herods lie in wait each hour
    To murder thee as soon as thou art born--
      Nay, force thy bud to blow--their tyrant breath
      Anticipating life, to hasten death!




WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT

1611-1643


_330._ _To Chloe_

_Who for his sake wished herself younger_

    There are two births; the one when light
      First strikes the new awaken’d sense;
    The other when two souls unite,
      And we must count our life from thence:
    When you loved me and I loved you
    Then both of us were born anew.

    Love then to us new souls did give
      And in those souls did plant new powers;
    Since when another life we live,
      The breath we breathe is his, not ours:
    Love makes those young whom age doth chill,
    And whom he finds young keeps young still.


_331._ _Falsehood_

    Still do the stars impart their light
    To those that travel in the night;
    Still time runs on, nor doth the hand
    Or shadow on the dial stand;
    The streams still glide and constant are:
            Only thy mind
            Untrue I find,
            Which carelessly
            Neglects to be
    Like stream or shadow, hand or star.

    Fool that I am! I do recall
    My words, and swear thou’rt like them all,
    Thou seem’st like stars to nourish fire,
    But O how cold is thy desire!
    And like the hand upon the brass
            Thou point’st at me
            In mockery;
            If I come nigh
            Shade-like thou’lt fly,
    And as the stream with murmur pass.


_332._ _On the Queen’s Return from the Low Countries_

    Hallow the threshold, crown the posts anew!
        The day shall have its due.
    Twist all our victories into one bright wreath,
        On which let honour breathe;
    Then throw it round the temples of our Queen!
    ’Tis she that must preserve those glories green.

    When greater tempests than on sea before
        Received her on the shore;
    When she was shot at ‘for the King’s own good’
        By legions hired to blood;
    How bravely did she do, how bravely bear!
    And show’d, though they durst rage, she durst not fear.

    Courage was cast about her like a dress
        Of solemn comeliness:
    A gathered mind and an untroubled face
        Did give her dangers grace:
    Thus, arm’d with innocence, secure they move
    Whose highest ‘treason’ is but highest love.


_333._ _On a Virtuous Young Gentlewoman that died suddenly_

    She who to Heaven more Heaven doth annex,
    Whose lowest thought was above all our sex,
    Accounted nothing death but t’ be reprieved,
    And died as free from sickness as she lived.
    Others are dragg’d away, or must be driven,
    She only saw her time and stept to Heaven;
    Where seraphims view all her glories o’er,
    As one return’d that had been there before.
    For while she did this lower world adorn,
    Her body seem’d rather assumed than born;
    So rarified, advanced, so pure and whole,
    That body might have been another’s soul;
    And equally a miracle it were
    That she could die, or that she could live here.




JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE

1612-1650


_334._ _I’ll never love Thee more_

    My dear and only Love, I pray
      That little world of thee
    Be govern’d by no other sway
      Than purest monarchy;
    For if confusion have a part
      (Which virtuous souls abhor),
    And hold a synod in thine heart,
      I’ll never love thee more.

    Like Alexander I will reign,
      And I will reign alone;
    My thoughts did evermore disdain
      A rival on my throne.
    He either fears his fate too much,
      Or his deserts are small,
    That dares not put it to the touch,
      To gain or lose it all.

    And in the empire of thine heart,
      Where I should solely be,
    If others do pretend a part
      Or dare to vie with me,
    Or if _Committees_ thou erect,
      And go on such a score,
    I’ll laugh and sing at thy neglect,
      And never love thee more.

    But if thou wilt prove faithful then,
      And constant of thy word,
    I’ll make thee glorious by my pen
      And famous by my sword;
    I’ll serve thee in such noble ways
      Was never heard before;
    I’ll crown and deck thee all with bays,
      And love thee more and more.




THOMAS JORDAN

1612?-1685


_335._ _Coronemus nos Rosis antequam marcescant_

    Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice,
    With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice!
    The changeable world to our joy is unjust,
          All treasure’s uncertain,
          Then down with your dust!
    In frolics dispose your pounds, shillings, and pence,
    For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence.


    We’ll sport and be free with Moll, Betty, and Dolly,
    Have oysters and lobsters to cure melancholy:
    Fish-dinners will make a man spring like a flea,
          Dame Venus, love’s lady,
          Was born of the sea;
    With her and with Bacchus we’ll tickle the sense,
    For we shall be past it a hundred years hence.

    Your most beautiful bride who with garlands is crown’d
    And kills with each glance as she treads on the ground,
    Whose lightness and brightness doth shine in such splendour
          That none but the stars
          Are thought fit to attend her,
    Though now she be pleasant and sweet to the sense,
    Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence.

    Then why should we turmoil in cares and in fears,
    Turn all our tranquill’ty to sighs and to tears?
    Let’s eat, drink, and play till the worms do corrupt us,
          ’Tis certain, _Post mortem_
          _Nulla voluptas_.
    For health, wealth and beauty, wit, learning and sense,
    Must all come to nothing a hundred years hence.




RICHARD CRASHAW

1613?-1649


_336._ _Wishes to His Supposed Mistress_

    Whoe’er she be--
    That not impossible She
    That shall command my heart and me:

    Where’er she lie,
    Lock’d up from mortal eye
    In shady leaves of destiny:


    Till that ripe birth
    Of studied Fate stand forth,
    And teach her fair steps to our earth:

    Till that divine
    Idea take a shrine
    Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:

    Meet you her, my Wishes,
    Bespeak her to my blisses,
    And be ye call’d my absent kisses.

    I wish her Beauty,
    That owes not all its duty
    To gaudy tire, or glist’ring shoe-tie:

    Something more than
    Taffeta or tissue can,
    Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

    A Face, that’s best
    By its own beauty drest,
    And can alone commend the rest.

    A Face, made up
    Out of no other shop
    Than what Nature’s white hand sets ope.

    A Cheek, where youth
    And blood, with pen of truth,
    Write what the reader sweetly ru’th.

    A Cheek, where grows
    More than a morning rose,
    Which to no box his being owes.


    Lips, where all day
    A lover’s kiss may play,
    Yet carry nothing thence away.

    Looks, that oppress
    Their richest tires, but dress
    And clothe their simplest nakedness.

    Eyes, that displace
    The neighbour diamond, and outface
    That sunshine by their own sweet grace.

    Tresses, that wear
    Jewels but to declare
    How much themselves more precious are:

    Whose native ray
    Can tame the wanton day
    Of gems that in their bright shades play.

    Each ruby there,
    Or pearl that dare appear,
    Be its own blush, be its own tear.

    A well-tamed Heart,
    For whose more noble smart
    Love may be long choosing a dart.

    Eyes, that bestow
    Full quivers on love’s bow,
    Yet pay less arrows than they owe.

    Smiles, that can warm
    The blood, yet teach a charm,
    That chastity shall take no harm.


    Blushes, that bin
    The burnish of no sin,
    Nor flames of aught too hot within.

    Joys, that confess
    Virtue their mistress,
    And have no other head to dress.

    Fears, fond and slight
    As the coy bride’s, when night
    First does the longing lover right.

    Days, that need borrow
    No part of their good-morrow
    From a fore-spent night of sorrow.

    Days, that in spite
    Of darkness, by the light
    Of a clear mind, are day all night.

    Nights, sweet as they,
    Made short by lovers’ play,
    Yet long by th’ absence of the day.

    Life, that dares send
    A challenge to his end,
    And when it comes, say, ‘Welcome, friend!’

    Sydneian showers
    Of sweet discourse, whose powers
    Can crown old Winter’s head with flowers.

    Soft silken hours,
    Open suns, shady bowers;
    ’Bove all, nothing within that lowers.


    Whate’er delight
    Can make Day’s forehead bright,
    Or give down to the wings of Night.

    I wish her store
    Of worth may leave her poor
    Of wishes; and I wish--no more.

    Now, if Time knows
    That Her, whose radiant brows
    Weave them a garland of my vows;

    Her, whose just bays
    My future hopes can raise,
    A trophy to her present praise;

    Her, that dares be
    What these lines wish to see;
    I seek no further, it is She.

    ’Tis She, and here,
    Lo! I unclothe and clear
    My Wishes’ cloudy character.

    May she enjoy it
    Whose merit dare apply it,
    But modesty dares still deny it!

    Such worth as this is
    Shall fix my flying Wishes,
    And determine them to kisses.

    Let her full glory,
    My fancies, fly before ye;
    Be ye my fictions--but her story.


_337._ _The Weeper_

      Hail, sister springs,
          Parents of silver-footed rills!
      Ever bubbling things,
    Thawing crystal, snowy hills!
        Still spending, never spent; I mean
        Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene.

      Heavens thy fair eyes be;
    Heavens of ever-falling stars;
      ’Tis seed-time still with thee,
    And stars thou sow’st whose harvest dares
        Promise the earth to countershine
        Whatever makes Heaven’s forehead fine.

      Every morn from hence
    A brisk cherub something sips
      Whose soft influence
    Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips;
        Then to his music: and his song
        Tastes of this breakfast all day long.

      When some new bright guest
    Takes up among the stars a room,
      And Heaven will make a feast,
    Angels with their bottles come,
        And draw from these full eyes of thine
        Their Master’s water, their own wine.

      The dew no more will weep
    The primrose’s pale cheek to deck;
      The dew no more will sleep
    Nuzzled in the lily’s neck:
        Much rather would it tremble here,
        And leave them both to be thy tear.


      When sorrow would be seen
    In her brightest majesty,
    --For she is a Queen--
    Then is she drest by none but thee:
        Then and only then she wears
        Her richest pearls--I mean thy tears.

      Not in the evening’s eyes,
    When they red with weeping are
      For the Sun that dies,
    Sits Sorrow with a face so fair.
        Nowhere but here did ever meet
        Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.

      Does the night arise?
    Still thy tears do fall and fall.
      Does night lose her eyes?
    Still the fountain weeps for all.
        Let day and night do what they will,
        Thou hast thy task, thou weepest still.

      Not _So long she lived_
    Will thy tomb report of thee;
      But _So long she grieved_:
    Thus must we date thy memory.
        Others by days, by months, by years,
        Measure their ages, thou by tears.

      Say, ye bright brothers,
    The fugitive sons of those fair eyes
      Your fruitful mothers,
    What make you here? What hopes can ’tice
        You to be born? What cause can borrow
        You from those nests of noble sorrow?


      Whither away so fast
    For sure the sordid earth
      Your sweetness cannot taste,
    Nor does the dust deserve your birth.
        Sweet, whither haste you then? O say,
        Why you trip so fast away?

      _We go not to seek_
    _The darlings of Aurora’s bed,_
      _The rose’s modest cheek,_
    _Nor the violet’s humble head._
        _No such thing: we go to meet_
        _A worthier object--our Lord’s feet._


_338._ _A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa_

    Love, thou art absolute, sole Lord
    Of life and death. To prove the word,
    We’ll now appeal to none of all
    Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,
    Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down
    With strong arms their triumphant crown:
    Such as could with lusty breath
    Speak loud, unto the face of death,
    Their great Lord’s glorious name; to none
    Of those whose spacious bosoms spread a throne
    For love at large to fill. Spare blood and sweat:
    We’ll see Him take a private seat,
    And make His mansion in the mild
    And milky soul of a soft child.


    Scarce has she learnt to lisp a name
    Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame
    Life should so long play with that breath
    Which spent can buy so brave a death.
    She never undertook to know
    What death with love should have to do.
    Nor has she e’er yet understood
    Why, to show love, she should shed blood;
    Yet, though she cannot tell you why,
    She can love, and she can die.
    Scarce has she blood enough to make
    A guilty sword blush for her sake;
    Yet has a heart dares hope to prove
    How much less strong is death than love....

    Since ’tis not to be had at home,
    She’ll travel for a martyrdom.
    No home for her, confesses she,
    But where she may a martyr be.
    She’ll to the Moors, and trade with them
    For this unvalued diadem;
    She offers them her dearest breath,
    With Christ’s name in ’t, in change for death:
    She’ll bargain with them, and will give
    Them God, and teach them how to live
    In Him; or, if they this deny,
    For Him she’ll teach them how to die.
    So shall she leave amongst them sown
    Her Lord’s blood, or at least her own.

    Farewell then, all the world, adieu!
    Teresa is no more for you.
    Farewell all pleasures, sports, and joys,
    Never till now esteemèd toys!


    Farewell whatever dear may be--
    Mother’s arms, or father’s knee!
    Farewell house, and farewell home!
    She’s for the Moors and Martyrdom.

    Sweet, not so fast; lo! thy fair spouse,
    Whom thou seek’st with so swift vows,
    Calls thee back, and bids thee come
    T’ embrace a milder martyrdom....

    O how oft shalt thou complain
    Of a sweet and subtle pain!
    Of intolerable joys!
    Of a death, in which who dies
    Loves his death, and dies again,
    And would for ever so be slain;
    And lives and dies, and knows not why
    To live, but that he still may die!
    How kindly will thy gentle heart
    Kiss the sweetly-killing dart!
    And close in his embraces keep
    Those delicious wounds, that weep
    Balsam, to heal themselves with thus,
    When these thy deaths, so numerous,
    Shall all at once die into one,
    And melt thy soul’s sweet mansion;
    Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
    By too hot a fire, and wasted
    Into perfuming clouds, so fast
    Shalt thou exhale to heaven at last
    In a resolving sigh, and then,--
    O what? Ask not the tongues of men.

    Angels cannot tell; suffice,
    Thyself shalt feel thine own full joys,
    And hold them fast for ever there.
    So soon as thou shalt first appear,
    The moon of maiden stars, thy white
    Mistress, attended by such bright
    Souls as thy shining self, shall come,
    And in her first ranks make thee room;
    Where, ’mongst her snowy family,
    Immortal welcomes wait for thee.
    O what delight, when she shall stand
    And teach thy lips heaven, with her hand,
    On which thou now may’st to thy wishes
    Heap up thy consecrated kisses!
    What joy shall seize thy soul, when she,
    Bending her blessèd eyes on thee,
    Those second smiles of heaven, shall dart
    Her mild rays through thy melting heart!

    Angels, thy old friends, there shall greet thee.
    Glad at their own home now to meet thee.
    All thy good works which went before,
    And waited for thee at the door,
    Shall own thee there; and all in one
    Weave a constellation
    Of crowns, with which the King, thy spouse,
    Shall build up thy triumphant brows.
    All thy old woes shall now smile on thee,
    And thy pains sit bright upon thee:
    All thy sorrows here shall shine,
    And thy sufferings be divine.
    Tears shall take comfort, and turn gems,
    And wrongs repent to diadems.
    Even thy deaths shall live, and new
    Dress the soul which late they slew.
    Thy wounds shall blush to such bright scars
    As keep account of the Lamb’s wars.

    Those rare works, where thou shalt leave writ
    Love’s noble history, with wit
    Taught thee by none but Him, while here
    They feed our souls, shall clothe thine there.
    Each heavenly word by whose hid flame
    Our hard hearts shall strike fire, the same
    Shall flourish on thy brows, and be
    Both fire to us and flame to thee;
    Whose light shall live bright in thy face
    By glory, in our hearts by grace.
    Thou shalt look round about, and see
    Thousands of crown’d souls throng to be
    Themselves thy crown, sons of thy vows,
    The virgin-births with which thy spouse
    Made fruitful thy fair soul; go now,
    And with them all about thee bow
    To Him; put on, He’ll say, put on,
    My rosy Love, that thy rich zone,
    Sparkling with the sacred flames
    Of thousand souls, whose happy names
    Heaven keeps upon thy score: thy bright
    Life brought them first to kiss the light
    That kindled them to stars; and so
    Thou with the Lamb, thy Lord, shalt go.
    And, wheresoever He sets His white
    Steps, walk with Him those ways of light,
    Which who in death would live to see,
    Must learn in life to die like thee.


_339._ _Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa_

    O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
    By all thy dower of lights and fires;
    By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
    By all thy lives and deaths of love;
    By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
    And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
    By all thy brim-fill’d bowls of fierce desire,
    By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire;
    By the full kingdom of that final kiss
    That seized thy parting soul, and seal’d thee His;
    By all the Heav’n thou hast in Him
    (Fair sister of the seraphim!);
    By all of Him we have in thee;
    Leave nothing of myself in me.
    Let me so read thy life, that I
    Unto all life of mine may die!


_340._ _Verses from the Shepherds’ Hymn_

    We saw Thee in Thy balmy nest,
      Young dawn of our eternal day;
    We saw Thine eyes break from the East,
      And chase the trembling shades away:
    We saw Thee, and we blest the sight,
    We saw Thee by Thine own sweet light.

    Poor world, said I, what wilt thou do
      To entertain this starry stranger?
    Is this the best thou canst bestow--
      A cold and not too cleanly manger?
    Contend, the powers of heaven and earth,
    To fit a bed for this huge birth.

    Proud world, said I, cease your contest,
      And let the mighty babe alone;
    The phœnix builds the phœnix’ nest,
      Love’s architecture is His own.
    The babe, whose birth embraves this morn,
    Made His own bed ere He was born.

    I saw the curl’d drops, soft and slow,
      Come hovering o’er the place’s head,
    Off’ring their whitest sheets of snow,
      To furnish the fair infant’s bed.
    Forbear, said I, be not too bold;
    Your fleece is white, but ’tis too cold.

    I saw th’ obsequious seraphim
      Their rosy fleece of fire bestow,
    For well they now can spare their wings,
      Since Heaven itself lies here below.
    Well done, said I; but are you sure
    Your down, so warm, will pass for pure?

    No, no, your King’s not yet to seek
      Where to repose His royal head;
    See, see how soon His new-bloom’d cheek
      ’Twixt mother’s breasts is gone to bed!
    Sweet choice, said we; no way but so,
    Not to lie cold, yet sleep in snow

    She sings Thy tears asleep, and dips
      Her kisses in Thy weeping eye;
    She spreads the red leaves of Thy lips,
      That in their buds yet blushing lie.
    She ’gainst those mother diamonds tries
    The points of her young eagle’s eyes.

    Welcome--tho’ not to those gay flies,
      Gilded i’ th’ beams of earthly kings,
    Slippery souls in smiling eyes--
      But to poor shepherds, homespun things,
    Whose wealth’s their flocks, whose wit’s to be
    Well read in their simplicity.

    Yet, when young April’s husband show’rs
      Shall bless the fruitful Maia’s bed,
    We’ll bring the first-born of her flowers,
      To kiss Thy feet and crown Thy head.
    To Thee, dread Lamb! whose love must keep
    The shepherds while they feed their sheep.

    To Thee, meek Majesty, soft King
      Of simple graces and sweet loves!
    Each of us his lamb will bring,
      Each his pair of silver doves!
    At last, in fire of Thy fair eyes,
    Ourselves become our own best sacrifice!


_341._ _Christ Crucified_

    Thy restless feet now cannot go
      For us and our eternal good,
    As they were ever wont. What though
      They swim, alas! in their own flood?

    Thy hands to give Thou canst not lift,
      Yet will Thy hand still giving be;
    It gives, but O, itself’s the gift!
      It gives tho’ bound, tho’ bound ’tis free!


_342._ _An Epitaph upon Husband and Wife_

_Who died and were buried together._

    To these whom death again did wed
    This grave’s the second marriage-bed.
    For though the hand of Fate could force
    ’Twixt soul and body a divorce,
    It could not sever man and wife,
    Because they both lived but one life.
    Peace, good reader, do not weep;
    Peace, the lovers are asleep.
    They, sweet turtles, folded lie
    In the last knot that love could tie.
    Let them sleep, let them sleep on,
    Till the stormy night be gone,
    And the eternal morrow dawn;
    Then the curtains will be drawn,
    And they wake into a light
    Whose day shall never die in night.




RICHARD LOVELACE

1618-1658


_343._ _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 thou too shalt adore;
    I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
      Loved I not Honour more.


_344._ _To Lucasta, going beyond the Seas_

        If to be absent were to be
            Away from thee;
          Or that when I am gone
          You or I were alone;
        Then, my Lucasta, might I crave
    Pity from blustering wind or swallowing wave.

        But I’ll not sigh one blast or gale
            To swell my sail,
          Or pay a tear to ’suage
          The foaming blue god’s rage;
        For whether he will let me pass
    Or no, I’m still as happy as I was.

        Though seas and land betwixt us both,
            Our faith and troth,
          Like separated souls,
          All time and space controls:
        Above the highest sphere we meet
    Unseen, unknown; and greet as Angels greet.

        So then we do anticipate
            Our after-fate,
          And are alive i’ the skies,
          If thus our lips and eyes
        Can speak like spirits unconfined
    In Heaven, their earthy bodies left behind.


_345._ _Gratiana Dancing_

    She beat the happy pavèment--
    By such a star made firmament,
      Which now no more the roof envìes!
        But swells up high, with Atlas even,
        Bearing the brighter nobler heaven,
      And, in her, all the deities.

    Each step trod out a Lover’s thought,
    And the ambitious hopes he brought
      Chain’d to her brave feet with such arts,
        Such sweet command and gentle awe,
        As, when she ceased, we sighing saw
      The floor lay paved with broken hearts.


_346._ _To Amarantha, that she would dishevel her Hair_

    Amarantha sweet and fair,
    Ah, braid no more that shining hair!
    As my curious hand or eye
    Hovering round thee, let it fly!

    Let it fly as unconfined
    As its calm ravisher the wind,
    Who hath left his darling, th’ East,
    To wanton o’er that spicy nest.

    Every tress must be confest,
    But neatly tangled at the best;
    Like a clew of golden thread
    Most excellently ravellèd.


    Do not then wind up that light
    In ribbands, and o’ercloud in night,
    Like the Sun in’s early ray;
    But shake your head, and scatter day!


_347._ _The Grasshopper_

    O thou that swing’st upon the waving hair
      Of some well-fillèd oaten beard,
    Drunk every night with a delicious tear
      Dropt thee from heaven, where thou wert rear’d!

    The joys of earth and air are thine entire,
      That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;
    And when thy poppy works, thou dost retire
      To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

    Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom’st then,
      Sport’st in the gilt plaits of his beams,
    And all these merry days mak’st merry men,
      Thyself, and melancholy streams.


_348._ _To Althea, from Prison_

    When Love with unconfinèd wings
      Hovers within my gates,
    And my divine Althea brings
      To whisper at the grates;
    When I lie tangled in her hair
      And fetter’d to her eye,
    The birds that wanton in the air
      Know no such liberty.

    When flowing cups run swiftly round
      With no allaying Thames,
    Our careless heads with roses bound,
      Our hearts with loyal flames;
    When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
      When healths and draughts go free--
    Fishes that tipple in the deep
      Know no such liberty.

    When, like committed linnets, I
      With shriller throat shall sing
    The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
      And glories of my King;
    When I shall voice aloud how good
      He is, how great should be,
    Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood,
      Know no such liberty.

    Stone walls do not a prison make,
      Nor iron bars a cage;
    Minds innocent and quiet take
      That for an hermitage;
    If I have freedom in my love
      And in my soul am free,
    Angels alone, that soar above,
      Enjoy such liberty.




ABRAHAM COWLEY

1618-1667


_Anacreontics_


_349._ _1. Drinking_

    The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
    And drinks and gapes for drink again;
    The plants suck in the earth, and are
    With constant drinking fresh and fair;
    The sea itself (which one would think
    Should have but little need of drink)
    Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
    So fill’d that they o’erflow the cup.
    The busy Sun (and one would guess
    By ’s drunken fiery face no less)
    Drinks up the sea, and when he’s done,
    The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:
    They drink and dance by their own light,
    They drink and revel all the night:
    Nothing in Nature’s sober found,
    But an eternal health goes round.
    Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high.
    Fill all the glasses there--for why
    Should every creature drink but I?
    Why, man of morals, tell me why?


_350._ _2. The Epicure_

    Underneath this myrtle shade,
    On flowery beds supinely laid,
    With odorous oils my head o’erflowing,
    And around it roses growing,
    What should I do but drink away
    The heat and troubles of the day?
    In this more than kingly state
    Love himself on me shall wait.
    Fill to me, Love! nay, fill it up!
    And mingled cast into the cup
    Wit and mirth and noble fires,
    Vigorous health and gay desires.
    The wheel of life no less will stay
    In a smooth than rugged way:
    Since it equally doth flee,
    Let the motion pleasant be.
    Why do we precious ointments shower?--
    Nobler wines why do we pour?--
    Beauteous flowers why do we spread
    Upon the monuments of the dead?
    Nothing they but dust can show,
    Or bones that hasten to be so.
    Crown me with roses while I live,
    Now your wines and ointments give:
    After death I nothing crave,
    Let me alive my pleasures have:
    All are Stoics in the grave.


_351._ _3. The Swallow_

    Foolish prater, what dost thou
    So early at my window do?
    Cruel bird, thou’st ta’en away
    A dream out of my arms to-day;
    A dream that ne’er must equall’d be
    By all that waking eyes may see.
    Thou this damage to repair
    Nothing half so sweet and fair,
    Nothing half so good, canst bring,
    Tho’ men say thou bring’st the Spring.


_352._ _On the Death of Mr. William Hervey_

    It was a dismal and a fearful night:
    Scarce could the Morn drive on th’ unwilling Light,
    When Sleep, Death’s image, left my troubled breast
          By something liker Death possest.
    My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow,
          And on my soul hung the dull weight
          Of some intolerable fate.
    What bell was that? Ah me! too much I know!

    My sweet companion and my gentle peer,
    Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here,
    Thy end for ever and my life to moan?
          O, thou hast left me all alone!
    Thy soul and body, when death’s agony
          Besieged around thy noble heart,
          Did not with more reluctance part
    Than I, my dearest Friend, do part from thee.

    My dearest Friend, would I had died for thee!
    Life and this world henceforth will tedious be:
    Nor shall I know hereafter what to do
          If once my griefs prove tedious too.
    Silent and sad I walk about all day,
          As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by
          Where their hid treasures lie;
    Alas! my treasure’s gone; why do I stay?

    Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights,
    How oft unwearied have we spent the nights,
    Till the Ledæan stars, so famed for love,
          Wonder’d at us from above!
    We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;
          But search of deep Philosophy,
          Wit, Eloquence, and Poetry--
    Arts which I loved, for they, my Friend, were thine.

    Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say
    Have ye not seen us walking every day?
    Was there a tree about which did not know
          The love betwixt us two?
          Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade;
    Or your sad branches thicker join
          And into darksome shades combine,
    Dark as the grave wherein my Friend is laid!

    Large was his soul: as large a soul as e’er
    Submitted to inform a body here;
    High as the place ’twas shortly in Heaven to have,
          But low and humble as his grave.
    So high that all the virtues there did come,
          As to their chiefest seat
          Conspicuous and great;
    So low, that for me too it made a room.

    Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught
    As if for him Knowledge had rather sought;
    Nor did more learning ever crowded lie
          In such a short mortality.
    Whene’er the skilful youth discoursed or writ,
          Still did the notions throng
          About his eloquent tongue;
    Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit.

    His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,
    Yet never did his God or friends forget;
    And when deep talk and wisdom came in view,
          Retired, and gave to them their due.
    For the rich help of books he always took,
          Though his own searching mind before
          Was so with notions written o’er,
    As if wise Nature had made that her book.


    With as much zeal, devotion, piety,
    He always lived, as other saints do die.
    Still with his soul severe account he kept,
          Weeping all debts out ere he slept.
    Then down in peace and innocence he lay,
          Like the Sun’s laborious light,
          Which still in water sets at night,
    Unsullied with his journey of the day.

    But happy Thou, ta’en from this frantic age,
    Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!
    A fitter time for Heaven no soul e’er chose--
          The place now only free from those.
    There ’mong the blest thou dost for ever shine;
          And wheresoe’er thou casts thy view
          Upon that white and radiant crew,
    See’st not a soul clothed with more light than thine.


_353._ _The Wish_

    Well then! I now do plainly see
    This busy world and I shall ne’er agree.
    The very honey of all earthly joy
    Does of all meats the soonest cloy;
        And they, methinks, deserve my pity
    Who for it can endure the stings,
    The crowd and buzz and murmurings,
        Of this great hive, the city.

    Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave
    May I a small house and large garden have;
    And a few friends, and many books, both true,
    Both wise, and both delightful too!
        And since love ne’er will from me flee,
    A Mistress moderately fair,
    And good as guardian angels are,
        Only beloved and loving me.

    O fountains! when in you shall I
    Myself eased of unpeaceful thoughts espy?
    O fields! O woods! when, when shall I be made
    The happy tenant of your shade?
        Here’s the spring-head of Pleasure’s flood:
    Here’s wealthy Nature’s treasury,
    Where all the riches lie that she
        Has coin’d and stamp’d for good.

    Pride and ambition here
    Only in far-fetch’d metaphors appear;
    Here nought but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter,
    And nought but Echo flatter.
        The gods, when they descended, hither
    From heaven did always choose their way:
    And therefore we may boldly say
        That ’tis the way too thither.

    How happy here should I
    And one dear She live, and embracing die!
    She who is all the world, and can exclude
    In deserts solitude.
        I should have then this only fear:
    Lest men, when they my pleasures see,
    Should hither throng to live like me,
        And so make a city here.




ALEXANDER BROME

1620-1666


_354._ _The Resolve_

    Tell me not of a face that’s fair,
      Nor lip and cheek that’s red,
    Nor of the tresses of her hair,
      Nor curls in order laid,
    Nor of a rare seraphic voice
      That like an angel sings;
    Though if I were to take my choice
      I would have all these things:
    But if that thou wilt have me love,
      And it must be a she,
    The only argument can move
      Is that she will love me.

    The glories of your ladies be
      But metaphors of things,
    And but resemble what we see
      Each common object brings.
    Roses out-red their lips and cheeks,
      Lilies their whiteness stain;
    What fool is he that shadows seeks
      And may the substance gain?
    Then if thou’lt have me love a lass,
      Let it be one that’s kind:
    Else I’m a servant to the glass
      That’s with Canary lined.




ANDREW MARVELL

1621-1678


_355._ _An Horatian Ode_

_upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland_

    The forward youth that would appear
    Must now forsake his Muses dear,
        Nor in the shadows sing
        His numbers languishing.

    ’Tis time to leave the books in dust,
    And oil the unused armour’s rust,
        Removing from the wall
        The corslet of the hall.

    So restless Cromwell could not cease
    In the inglorious arts of peace,
        But through adventurous war
        Urgèd his active star:

    And like the three-fork’d lightning, first
    Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
        Did thorough his own side
        His fiery way divide:

    For ’tis all one to courage high,
    The emulous, or enemy;
        And with such, to enclose
        Is more than to oppose.

    Then burning through the air he went
    And palaces and temples rent;
        And Cæsar’s head at last
        Did through his laurels blast.


    ’Tis madness to resist or blame
    The face of angry Heaven’s flame;
        And if we would speak true,
        Much to the man is due,

    Who, from his private gardens, where
    He lived reservèd and austere
        (As if his highest plot
        To plant the bergamot),

    Could by industrious valour climb
    To ruin the great work of time,
        And cast the Kingdoms old
        Into another mould;

    Though Justice against Fate complain,
    And plead the ancient rights in vain--
        But those do hold or break
        As men are strong or weak--

    Nature, that hateth emptiness,
    Allows of penetration less,
        And therefore must make room
        Where greater spirits come.

    What field of all the civil war
    Where his were not the deepest scar?
        And Hampton shows what part
        He had of wiser art;

    Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
    He wove a net of such a scope
        That Charles himself might chase
        To Caresbrooke’s narrow case;
    That thence the Royal actor borne
    The tragic scaffold might adorn:
        While round the armèd bands
        Did clap their bloody hands.

    He nothing common did or mean
    Upon that memorable scene,
        But with his keener eye
        The axe’s edge did try;

    Nor call’d the gods, with vulgar spite,
    To vindicate his helpless right;
        But bow’d his comely head
        Down, as upon a bed.

    This was that memorable hour
    Which first assured the forcèd power:
        So when they did design
        The Capitol’s first line,

    A Bleeding Head, where they begun,
    Did fright the architects to run;
        And yet in that the State
        Foresaw its happy fate!

    And now the Irish are ashamed
    To see themselves in one year tamed:
        So much one man can do
        That does both act and know.

    They can affirm his praises best,
    And have, though overcome, confest
        How good he is, how just
        And fit for highest trust.


    Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
    But still in the republic’s hand--
        How fit he is to sway
        That can so well obey!

    He to the Commons’ feet presents
    A Kingdom for his first year’s rents,
        And, what he may, forbears
        His fame, to make it theirs:

    And has his sword and spoils ungirt
    To lay them at the public’s skirt.
        So when the falcon high
        Falls heavy from the sky,

    She, having kill’d, no more doth search
    But on the next green bough to perch;
        Where, when he first does lure,
        The falconer has her sure.

    What may not then our Isle presume
    While victory his crest does plume?
        What may not others fear,
        If thus he crowns each year?

    As Cæsar he, ere long, to Gaul,
    To Italy an Hannibal,
        And to all States not free
        Shall climacteric be.

    The Pict no shelter now shall find
    Within his particolour’d mind,
        But, from this valour, sad
        Shrink underneath the plaid;
    Happy, if in the tufted brake
    The English hunter him mistake,
        Nor lay his hounds in near
        The Caledonian deer.

    But thou, the war’s and fortune’s son,
    March indefatigably on;
        And for the last effect,
        Still keep the sword erect:

    Besides the force it has to fright
    The spirits of the shady night,
        The same arts that did gain
        A power, must it maintain.


_356._ _A Garden_

_Written after the Civil Wars_

    See how the flowers, as at parade,
    Under their colours stand display’d:
    Each regiment in order grows,
    That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
    But when the vigilant patrol
    Of stars walks round about the pole,
    Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl’d,
    Seem to their staves the ensigns furl’d.
    Then in some flower’s belovèd hut
    Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
    And sleeps so too; but if once stirr’d,
    She runs you through, nor asks the word.
    O thou, that dear and happy Isle,
    The garden of the world erewhile,
    Thou Paradise of the four seas
    Which Heaven planted us to please,
    But, to exclude the world, did guard
    With wat’ry if not flaming sword;
    What luckless apple did we taste
    To make us mortal and thee waste!
    Unhappy! shall we never more
    That sweet militia restore,
    When gardens only had their towers,
    And all the garrisons were flowers;
    When roses only arms might bear,
    And men did rosy garlands wear?


_357._ _To His Coy Mistress_

    Had we but world enough, and time,
    This coyness, Lady, were no crime
    We would sit down and think which way
    To walk and pass our long love’s day.
    Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
    Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
    Of Humber would complain. I would
    Love you ten years before the Flood,
    And you should, if you please, refuse
    Till the conversion of the Jews.
    My vegetable love should grow
    Vaster than empires, and more slow;
    An hundred years should go to praise
    Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
    Two hundred to adore each breast,
    But thirty thousand to the rest;
    An age at least to every part,
    And the last age should show your heart.
    For, Lady, you deserve this state,
    Nor would I love at lower rate.
      But at my back I always hear
    Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
    And yonder all before us lie
    Deserts of vast eternity.
    Thy beauty shall no more be found,
    Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
    My echoing song: then worms shall try
    That long preserved virginity,
    And your quaint honour turn to dust,
    And into ashes all my lust:
    The grave’s a fine and private place,
    But none, I think, do there embrace.
      Now therefore, while the youthful hue
    Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
    And while thy willing soul transpires
    At every pore with instant fires,
    Now let us sport us while we may,
    And now, like amorous birds of prey,
    Rather at once our time devour
    Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
    Let us roll all our strength and all
    Our sweetness up into one ball,
    And tear our pleasures with rough strife
    Thorough the iron gates of life:
    Thus, though we cannot make our sun
    Stand still, yet we will make him run.

     slow-chapt] slow-jawed, slowly devouring.

_358._ _The Picture of Little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers_

          See with what simplicity
        This nymph begins her golden days!
          In the green grass she loves to lie,
      And there with her fair aspect tames
      The wilder flowers, and gives them names;
        But only with the roses plays,
                            And them does tell
    What colour best becomes them, and what smell.

          Who can foretell for what high cause
        This darling of the gods was born?
          Yet this is she whose chaster laws
      The wanton Love shall one day fear,
      And, under her command severe,
        See his bow broke and ensigns torn.
                            Happy who can
    Appease this virtuous enemy of man!

          O then let me in time compound
        And parley with those conquering eyes,
          Ere they have tried their force to wound;
      Ere with their glancing wheels they drive
      In triumph over hearts that strive,
        And them that yield but more despise:
                            Let me be laid,
    Where I may see the glories from some shade.

          Meantime, whilst every verdant thing
        Itself does at thy beauty charm,
          Reform the errors of the Spring;
      Make that the tulips may have share
      Of sweetness, seeing they are fair,
        And roses of their thorns disarm;
                            But most procure
    That violets may a longer age endure.

          But O, young beauty of the woods,
        Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,
          Gather the flowers, but spare the buds;
      Lest Flora, angry at thy crime
      To kill her infants in their prime,
        Do quickly make th’ example yours;
                            And ere we see,
    Nip in the blossom all our hopes and thee.


_359._ _Thoughts in a Garden_

    How vainly men themselves amaze
    To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
    And their uncessant labours see
    Crown’d from some single herb or tree,
    Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
    Does prudently their toils upbraid;
    While all the flowers and trees do close
    To weave the garlands of repose!

    Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
    And Innocence thy sister dear?
    Mistaken long, I sought you then
    In busy companies of men:
    Your sacred plants, if here below,
    Only among the plants will grow:
    Society is all but rude
    To this delicious solitude.

    No white nor red was ever seen
    So amorous as this lovely green.
    Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
    Cut in these trees their mistress’ name:
    Little, alas! they know or heed
    How far these beauties hers exceed!
    Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound,
    No name shall but your own be found.

    When we have run our passions’ heat,
    Love hither makes his best retreat:
    The gods, that mortal beauty chase,
    Still in a tree did end their race;
    Apollo hunted Daphne so
    Only that she might laurel grow;
    And Pan did after Syrinx speed
    Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

    What wondrous life in this I lead!
    Ripe apples drop about my head;
    The luscious clusters of the vine
    Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
    The nectarine and curious peach
    Into my hands themselves do reach;
    Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
    Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

    Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
    Withdraws into its happiness;
    The mind, that ocean where each kind
    Does straight its own resemblance find;
    Yet it creates, transcending these,
    Far other worlds, and other seas;
    Annihilating all that’s made
    To a green thought in a green shade.

    Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
    Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root,
    Casting the body’s vest aside,
    My soul into the boughs does glide;
    There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
    Then whets and combs its silver wings,
    And, till prepared for longer flight,
    Waves in its plumes the various light.

    Such was that happy Garden-state
    While man there walk’d without a mate:
    After a place so pure and sweet,
    What other help could yet be meet!
    But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share
    To wander solitary there:
    Two paradises ’twere in one,
    To live in Paradise alone.

    How well the skilful gard’ner drew
    Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
    Where, from above, the milder sun
    Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
    And, as it works, th’ industrious bee
    Computes its time as well as we.
    How could such sweet and wholesome hours
    Be reckon’d, but with herbs and flowers!


_360._ _Bermudas_

    Where the remote Bermudas ride
    In the ocean’s bosom unespied,
    From a small boat that row’d along
    The listening woods received this song:

      ‘What should we do but sing His praise
    That led us through the watery maze
    Unto an isle so long unknown,
    And yet far kinder than our own?
    Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks,
    That lift the deep upon their backs,
    He lands us on a grassy stage,
    Safe from the storms’ and prelates’ rage:
    He gave us this eternal Spring
    Which here enamels everything,
    And sends the fowls to us in care
    On daily visits through the air:
    He hangs in shades the orange bright
    Like golden lamps in a green night,
    And does in the pomegranates close
    Jewels more rich than Ormus shows:
    He makes the figs our mouths to meet
    And throws the melons at our feet;
    But apples plants of such a price,
    No tree could ever bear them twice.
    With cedars chosen by His hand
    From Lebanon He stores the land;
    And makes the hollow seas that roar
    Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
    He cast (of which we rather boast)
    The Gospel’s pearl upon our coast;
    And in these rocks for us did frame
    A temple where to sound His name.
    O, let our voice His praise exalt
    Till it arrive at Heaven’s vault,
    Which thence (perhaps) rebounding may
    Echo beyond the Mexique bay!’

    Thus sung they in the English boat
    A holy and a cheerful note:
    And all the way, to guide their chime,
    With falling oars they kept the time.


_361._ _An Epitaph_

    Enough; and leave the rest to Fame!
    ’Tis to commend her, but to name.
    Courtship which, living, she declined,
    When dead, to offer were unkind:
    Nor can the truest wit, or friend,
    Without detracting, her commend.

    To say--she lived a virgin chaste
    In this age loose and all unlaced;
    Nor was, when vice is so allowed,
    Of virtue or ashamed or proud;
    That her soul was on Heaven so bent,
    No minute but it came and went;
    That, ready her last debt to pay,
    She summ’d her life up every day;
    Modest as morn, as mid-day bright,
    Gentle as evening, cool as night:
    --’Tis true; but all too weakly said.
    ’Twas more significant, she’s dead.




HENRY VAUGHAN

1621-1695


_362._ _The Retreat_

    Happy those early days, when I
    Shin’d in my Angel-infancy!
    Before I understood this place
    Appointed for my second race,
    Or taught my soul to fancy aught
    But a white celestial thought:
    When yet I had not walk’d above
    A mile or two from my first Love,
    And looking back--at that short space--
    Could see a glimpse of His bright face:
    When on some gilded cloud, or flow’r,
    My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
    And in those weaker glories spy
    Some shadows of eternity:
    Before I taught my tongue to wound
    My Conscience with a sinful sound,
    Or had the black art to dispense
    A several sin to ev’ry sense,
    But felt through all this fleshly dress
    Bright shoots of everlastingness.

      O how I long to travel back,
    And tread again that ancient track!
    That I might once more reach that plain
    Where first I left my glorious train;
    From whence th’ enlightned spirit sees
    That shady City of Palm-trees.
    But ah! my soul with too much stay
    Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
    Some men a forward motion love,
    But I by backward steps would move;
    And when this dust falls to the urn,
    In that state I came, return.


_363._ _Peace_

    My soul, there is a country
      Far beyond the stars,
    Where stands a wingèd sentry
      All skilful in the wars:
    There, above noise and danger,
      Sweet Peace sits crown’d with smiles,
    And One born in a manger
      Commands the beauteous files.
    He is thy gracious Friend,
      And--O my soul, awake!--
    Did in pure love descend
      To die here for thy sake.
    If thou canst get but thither,
      There grows the flower of Peace,
    The Rose that cannot wither,
      Thy fortress, and thy ease.
    Leave then thy foolish ranges;
      For none can thee secure
    But One who never changes--
      Thy God, thy life, thy cure.


_364._ _The Timber_

    Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs,
      Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers,
    Pass’d o’er thy head; many light hearts and wings,
      Which now are dead, lodg’d in thy living bowers.


    And still a new succession sings and flies;
      Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot
    Towards the old and still enduring skies,
      While the low violet thrives at their root.

    But thou beneath the sad and heavy line
      Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark;
    Where not so much as dreams of light may shine,
      Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark.

    And yet--as if some deep hate and dissent,
      Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee,
    Were still alive--thou dost great storms resent
      Before they come, and know’st how near they be.

    Else all at rest thou liest, and the fierce breath
      Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease;
    But this thy strange resentment after death
      Means only those who broke--in life--thy peace.


_365._ _Friends Departed_

    They are all gone into the world of light!
        And I alone sit ling’ring here;
    Their very memory is fair and bright,
              And my sad thoughts doth clear.

    It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
        Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
    Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
              After the sun’s remove.


    I see them walking in an air of glory,
        Whose light doth trample on my days:
    My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
              Mere glimmering and decays.

    O holy Hope! and high Humility,
        High as the heavens above!
    These are your walks, and you have show’d them me,
              To kindle my cold love.

    Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the Just,
        Shining nowhere, but in the dark;
    What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
              Could man outlook that mark!

    He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest may know,
        At first sight, if the bird be flown;
    But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
              That is to him unknown.

    And yet as Angels in some brighter dreams
        Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:
    So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
              And into glory peep.

    If a star were confin’d into a tomb,
        Her captive flames must needs burn there;
    But when the hand that lock’d her up gives room,
              She’ll shine through all the sphere.

    O Father of eternal life, and all
        Created glories under Thee!
    Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
              Into true liberty.


    Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
        My perspective still as they pass:
    Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
              Where I shall need no glass.




JOHN BUNYAN

1628-1688


_366._ _The Shepherd Boy sings in the Valley of Humiliation_

    He that is down needs fear no fall,
      He that is low, no pride;
    He that is humble ever shall
      Have God to be his guide.

    I am content with what I have,
      Little be it or much:
    And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
      Because Thou savest such.

    Fullness to such a burden is
      That go on pilgrimage:
    Here little, and hereafter bliss,
      Is best from age to age.




BALLADS AND SONGS BY UNKNOWN AUTHORS


_367._ _Thomas the Rhymer_

    True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
      A ferlie he spied wi’ his e’e;
    And there he saw a ladye bright
      Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

    Her skirt was o’ the grass-green silk,
      Her mantle o’ the velvet fyne;
    At ilka tett o’ her horse’s mane,
      Hung fifty siller bells and nine.

    True Thomas he pu’d aff his cap,
      And louted low down on his knee:
    ‘Hail to thee, Mary, Queen of Heaven!
      For thy peer on earth could never be.’

    ‘O no, O no, Thomas,’ she said,
      ‘That name does not belang to me;
    I’m but the Queen o’ fair Elfland,
      That am hither come to visit thee.

    ‘Harp and carp, Thomas,’ she said;
      ‘Harp and carp along wi’ me;
    And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
      Sure of your bodie I will be.’

     ferlie] marvel. tett] tuft, lock. harp and carp] play and recite
     (as a minstrel).

    ‘Betide me weal, betide me woe,
      That weird shall never daunten me.’
    Syne he has kiss’d her rosy lips,
      All underneath the Eildon Tree.

    ‘Now ye maun go wi’ me,’ she said,
      ‘True Thomas, ye maun go wi’ me;
    And ye maun serve me seven years,
      Thro’ weal or woe as may chance to be.’

    She’s mounted on her milk-white steed,
      She’s ta’en true Thomas up behind;
    And aye, whene’er her bridle rang,
      The steed gaed swifter than the wind.

    O they rade on, and farther on,
      The steed gaed swifter than the wind;
    Until they reach’d a desert wide,
      And living land was left behind.

    ‘Light down, light down now, true Thomas,
      And lean your head upon my knee;
    Abide ye there a little space,
      And I will show you ferlies three.

    ‘O see ye not yon narrow road,
      So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers?
    That is the Path of Righteousness,
     Though after it but few inquires.

    ‘And see ye not yon braid, braid road,
      That lies across the lily leven?
    That is the Path of Wickedness,
      Though some call it the Road to Heaven.

     leven]? lawn.

    ‘And see ye not yon bonny road
      That winds about the fernie brae?
    That is the Road to fair Elfland,
      Where thou and I this night maun gae.

    ‘But, Thomas, ye sall haud your tongue,
      Whatever ye may hear or see;
    For speak ye word in Elfyn-land,
      Ye’ll ne’er win back to your ain countrie.’

    O they rade on, and farther on,
      And they waded rivers abune the knee;
    And they saw neither sun nor moon,
      But they heard the roaring of the sea.

    It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,
      They waded thro’ red blude to the knee;
    For a’ the blude that’s shed on the earth
      Rins through the springs o’ that countrie.

    Syne they came to a garden green,
      And she pu’d an apple frae a tree:
    ‘Take this for thy wages, true Thomas;
      It will give thee the tongue that can never lee.’

    ‘My tongue is my ain,’ true Thomas he said;
      ‘A gudely gift ye wad gie to me!
    I neither dought to buy or sell
      At fair or tryst where I might be.

    ‘I dought neither speak to prince or peer,
      Nor ask of grace from fair ladye!’--
    ‘Now haud thy peace, Thomas,’ she said,
      ‘For as I say, so must it be.’

     dought] could.

    He has gotten a coat of the even cloth,
      And a pair o’ shoon of the velvet green;
    And till seven years were gane and past,
      True Thomas on earth was never seen.


_368._ _Sir Patrick Spens_


I. _The Sailing_

    The king sits in Dunfermline town
      Drinking the blude-red wine;
    ‘O whare will I get a skeely skipper
      To sail this new ship o’ mine?’

    O up and spak an eldern knight,
      Sat at the king’s right knee;
    ‘Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
      That ever sail’d the sea.’

    Our king has written a braid letter,
      And seal’d it with his hand,
    And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
      Was walking on the strand.

    ‘To Noroway, to Noroway,
      To Noroway o’er the faem;
    The king’s daughter o’ Noroway,
      ’Tis thou must bring her hame.’

    The first word that Sir Patrick read
      So loud, loud laugh’d he;
    The neist word that Sir Patrick read
      The tear blinded his e’e.

     _368._ skeely] skilful.

    ‘O wha is this has done this deed
      And tauld the king o’ me,
    To send us out, at this time o’ year,
      To sail upon the sea?

    ‘Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
      Our ship must sail the faem;
    The king’s daughter o’ Noroway,
      ’Tis we must fetch her hame.’

    They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn
      Wi’ a’ the speed they may;
    They hae landed in Noroway
      Upon a Wodensday.


II. _The Return_

    ‘Mak ready, mak ready, my merry men a’;
      Our gude ship sails the morn.’
    ‘Now ever alack, my master dear,
      I fear a deadly storm.

    ‘I saw the new moon late yestreen
      Wi’ the auld moon in her arm;
    And if we gang to sea, master,
      I fear we’ll come to harm.’

    They hadna sail’d a league, a league,
      A league but barely three,
    When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
      And gurly grew the sea.

    The ankers brak, and the topmast lap,
      It was sic a deadly storm:
    And the waves cam owre the broken ship
      Till a’ her sides were torn.

     lift] sky. lap] sprang.

    ‘Go fetch a web o’ the silken claith,
      Another o’ the twine,
    And wap them into our ship’s side,
      And let nae the sea come in.’

    They fetch’d a web o’ the silken claith,
      Another o’ the twine,
    And they wapp’d them round that gude ship’s side,
      But still the sea came in.

    O laith, laith were our gude Scots lords
      To wet their cork-heel’d shoon;
    But lang or a’ the play was play’d
      They wat their hats aboon.

    And mony was the feather bed
      That flatter’d on the faem;
    And mony was the gude lord’s son
      That never mair cam hame.

    O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
      Wi’ their fans into their hand,
    Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
      Come sailing to the strand!

    And lang, lang may the maidens sit
      Wi’ their gowd kames in their hair,
    A-waiting for their ain dear loves!
      For them they’ll see nae mair.

    Half-owre, half-owre to Aberdour,
      ’Tis fifty fathoms deep;
    And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
      Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet!

     flatter’d] tossed afloat. kames] combs.


_369._ _The Lass of Lochroyan_

    ‘O wha will shoe my bonny foot?
      And wha will glove my hand?
    And wha will bind my middle jimp
      Wi’ a lang, lang linen band?

    ‘O wha will kame my yellow hair,
      With a haw bayberry kame?
    And wha will be my babe’s father
      Till Gregory come hame?’

    ‘Thy father, he will shoe thy foot,
      Thy brother will glove thy hand,
    Thy mither will bind thy middle jimp
      Wi’ a lang, lang linen band.

    ‘Thy sister will kame thy yellow hair,
     Wi’ a haw bayberry kame;
    The Almighty will be thy babe’s father
      Till Gregory come hame.’

    ‘And wha will build a bonny ship,
      And set it on the sea?
    For I will go to seek my love,
     My ain love Gregory.’

    Up then spak her father dear,
      A wafu’ man was he;
    ‘And I will build a bonny ship,
      And set her on the sea.

     jimp] trim. kame] comb. haw bayberry]? a corruption for ‘braw
     ivory’: or bayberry may = laurel-wood.

    ‘And I will build a bonny ship,
      And set her on the sea,
    And ye sal gae and seek your love,
      Your ain love Gregory.’

    Then he’s gart build a bonny ship,
      And set it on the sea,
    Wi’ four-and-twenty mariners,
      To bear her company.

    O he’s gart build a bonny ship,
      To sail on the salt sea;
    The mast was o’ the beaten gold,
      The sails o’ cramoisie.

    The sides were o’ the gude stout aik,
      The deck o’ mountain pine,
    The anchor o’ the silver shene,
      The ropes o’ silken twine.

    She hadna sail’d but twenty leagues,
      But twenty leagues and three,
    When she met wi’ a rank reiver,
      And a’ his companie.

    ‘Now are ye Queen of Heaven hie,
      Come to pardon a’ our sin?
    Or are ye Mary Magdalane,
      Was born at Bethlam?’

    ‘I’m no the Queen of Heaven hie,
      Come to pardon ye your sin,
    Nor am I Mary Magdalane,
      Was born in Bethlam.

     cramoisie] crimson. reiver] robber.

    ‘But I’m the lass of Lochroyan,
      That’s sailing on the sea
    To see if I can find my love,
      My ain love Gregory.’

    ‘O see na ye yon bonny bower?
      It’s a’ covered owre wi’ tin;
    When thou hast sail’d it round about,
      Lord Gregory is within.’

    And when she saw the stately tower,
      Shining both clear and bright,
    Whilk stood aboon the jawing wave,
      Built on a rock of height,

    Says, ‘Row the boat, my mariners,
      And bring me to the land,
    For yonder I see my love’s castle,
      Close by the salt sea strand.’

    She sail’d it round, and sail’d it round,
      And loud and loud cried she,
    ‘Now break, now break your fairy charms,
      And set my true-love free.’

    She’s ta’en her young son in her arms.
      And to the door she’s gane,
    And long she knock’d, and sair she ca’d.
      But answer got she nane.

    ‘O open, open, Gregory!
      O open! if ye be within;
    For here’s the lass of Lochroyan,
      Come far fra kith and kin.


    ‘O open the door, Lord Gregory!
      O open and let me in!
    The wind blows loud and cauld, Gregory,
      The rain drops fra my chin.

    ‘The shoe is frozen to my foot,
      The glove unto my hand,
    The wet drops fra my yellow hair,
      Na langer dow I stand.’

    O up then spak his ill mither,
    --An ill death may she die!
    ‘Ye’re no the lass of Lochroyan,
      She’s far out-owre the sea.

    ‘Awa’, awa’, ye ill woman,
      Ye’re no come here for gude;
    Ye’re but some witch or wil’ warlock,
      Or mermaid o’ the flood.’

    ‘I am neither witch nor wil’ warlock,
      Nor mermaid o’ the sea,
    But I am Annie of Lochroyan,
      O open the door to me!’

    ‘Gin ye be Annie of Lochroyan,
      As I trow thou binna she,
    Now tell me of some love-tokens
      That pass’d ’tween thee and me.’

    ‘O dinna ye mind, love Gregory,
      As we sat at the wine,
    We changed the rings frae our fingers?
      And I can shew thee thine.

     dow] can.

    ‘O yours was gude, and gude enough,
      But ay the best was mine,
    For yours was o’ the gude red gowd,
      But mine o’ the diamond fine.

    ‘Yours was o’ the gude red gowd,
      Mine o’ the diamond fine;
    Mine was o’ the purest troth,
      But thine was false within.’

    ‘If ye be the lass of Lochroyan,
      As I kenna thou be,
    Tell me some mair o’ the love-tokens
      Pass’d between thee and me.’

    ‘And dinna ye mind, love Gregory!
      As we sat on the hill,
    Thou twin’d me o’ my maidenheid,
      Right sair against my will?

    ‘Now open the door, love Gregory!
      Open the door! I pray;
    For thy young son is in my arms,
      And will be dead ere day.’

    ‘Ye lie, ye lie, ye ill woman,
      So loud I hear ye lie;
    For Annie of the Lochroyan
      Is far out-owre the sea.’

    Fair Annie turn’d her round about:
      ‘Weel, sine that it be sae,
    May ne’er woman that has borne a son
      Hae a heart sae fu’ o’ wae!


    ‘Tak down, tak down that mast o’ gowd,
      Set up a mast of tree;
    It disna become a forsaken lady
      To sail sae royallie.’

    When the cock had crawn, and the day did dawn,
      And the sun began to peep,
    Up then raise Lord Gregory,
      And sair, sair did he weep.

    ‘O I hae dream’d a dream, mither,
      I wish it may bring good!
    That the bonny lass of Lochroyan
      At my bower window stood.

    ‘O I hae dream’d a dream, mither,
      The thought o’t gars me greet!
    That fair Annie of Lochroyan
      Lay dead at my bed-feet.’

    ‘Gin it be for Annie of Lochroyan
      That ye mak a’ this mane,
    She stood last night at your bower-door,
      But I hae sent her hame.’

    ‘O wae betide ye, ill woman,
      An ill death may ye die!
    That wadna open the door yoursell
      Nor yet wad waken me.’

    O he’s gane down to yon shore-side,
      As fast as he could dree,
    And there he saw fair Annie’s bark
      A rowing owre the sea.


    ‘O Annie, Annie,’ loud he cried,
      ‘O Annie, O Annie, bide!’
    But ay the mair he cried ‘Annie,’
      The braider grew the tide.

    ‘O Annie, Annie, dear Annie,
      Dear Annie, speak to me!’
    But ay the louder he gan call,
      The louder roar’d the sea.

    The wind blew loud, the waves rose hie
      And dash’d the boat on shore;
    Fair Annie’s corpse was in the faem,
      The babe rose never more.

    Lord Gregory tore his gowden locks
      And made a wafu’ moan;
    Fair Annie’s corpse lay at his feet,
      His bonny son was gone.

    ‘O cherry, cherry was her cheek,
      And gowden was her hair,
    And coral, coral was her lips,
      Nane might with her compare,’

    Then first he kiss’d her pale, pale cheek,
      And syne he kiss’d her chin,
    And syne he kiss’d her wane, wane lips,
      There was na breath within.

    ‘O wae betide my ill mither,
      An ill death may she die!
    She turn’d my true-love frae my door,
      Who cam so far to me.


    ‘O wae betide my ill mither,
      An ill death may she die!
    She has no been the deid o’ ane,
      But she’s been the deid of three.’

    Then he’s ta’en out a little dart,
      Hung low down by his gore,
    He thrust it through and through his heart,
      And words spak never more.

     _369._ gore] skirt, waist.


_370._ _The Dowie Houms of Yarrow_

    Late at een, drinkin’ the wine,
      And ere they paid the lawin’,
    They set a combat them between,
      To fight it in the dawin’.

    ‘O stay at hame, my noble lord!
      O stay at hame, my marrow!
    My cruel brother will you betray,
      On the dowie houms o’ Yarrow.’

    ‘O fare ye weel, my lady gay!
      O fare ye weel, my Sarah!
    For I maun gae, tho’ I ne’er return
      Frae the dowie banks o’ Yarrow.’

    She kiss’d his cheek, she kamed his hair,
      As she had done before, O;
    She belted on his noble brand,
      An’ he’s awa to Yarrow.

     _370._ lawin’] reckoning. marrow] mate, husband or wife. dowie]
     doleful. houms] water-meads.

    O he’s gane up yon high, high hill--
      I wat he gaed wi’ sorrow--
    An’ in a den spied nine arm’d men,
      I’ the dowie houms o’ Yarrow.

    ‘O are ye come to drink the wine,
      As ye hae doon before, O?
    Or are ye come to wield the brand,
      On the dowie banks o’ Yarrow?’

    ‘I am no come to drink the wine,
      As I hae don before, O,
    But I am come to wield the brand,
      On the dowie houms o’ Yarrow.’

    Four he hurt, an’ five he slew,
      On the dowie houms o’ Yarrow,
    Till that stubborn knight came him behind,
      An’ ran his body thorrow.

    ‘Gae hame, gae hame, good brother John,
      An’ tell your sister Sarah
    To come an’ lift her noble lord,
      Who’s sleepin’ sound on Yarrow.’

    ‘Yestreen I dream’d a dolefu’ dream;
      I ken’d there wad be sorrow;
    I dream’d I pu’d the heather green,
      On the dowie banks o’ Yarrow.’

    She gaed up yon high, high hill--
      I wat she gaed wi’ sorrow--
    An’ in a den spied nine dead men,
      On the dowie houms o’ Yarrow.


    She kiss’d his cheek, she kamed his hair,
      As oft she did before, O;
    She drank the red blood frae him ran,
      On the dowie houms o’ Yarrow.

    ‘O haud your tongue, my douchter dear,
      For what needs a’ this sorrow?
    I’ll wed you on a better lord
      Than him you lost on Yarrow.’

    ‘O haud your tongue, my father dear,
      An’ dinna grieve your Sarah;
    A better lord was never born
      Than him I lost on Yarrow.

    ‘Tak hame your ousen, tak hame your kye,
      For they hae bred our sorrow;
    I wiss that they had a’ gane mad
      Whan they cam first to Yarrow.’


_371._ _Clerk Saunders_

    Clerk Saunders and may Margaret
      Walk’d owre yon garden green;
    And deep and heavy was the love
      That fell thir twa between.

    ‘A bed, a bed,’ Clerk Saunders said,
      ‘A bed for you and me!’
    ‘Fye na, fye na,’ said may Margaret,
      ’Till anes we married be!’

    ‘Then I’ll take the sword frae my scabbard
      And slowly lift the pin;
    And you may swear, and save your aith,
      Ye ne’er let Clerk Saunders in.


    ‘Take you a napkin in your hand,
      And tie up baith your bonnie e’en,
    And you may swear, and save your aith,
      Ye saw me na since late yestreen.’

    It was about the midnight hour,
      When they asleep were laid,
    When in and came her seven brothers,
      Wi’ torches burning red:

    When in and came her seven brothers,
      Wi’ torches burning bright:
    They said, ‘We hae but one sister,
      And behold her lying with a knight!’

    Then out and spake the first o’ them,
      ‘I bear the sword shall gar him die.’
    And out and spake the second o’ them,
      ‘His father has nae mair but he.’

    And out and spake the third o’ them,
      ‘I wot that they are lovers dear.’
    And out and spake the fourth o’ them,
      ‘They hae been in love this mony a year.’

    Then out and spake the fifth o’ them,
      ‘It were great sin true love to twain.’
    And out and spake the sixth o’ them,
      ‘It were shame to slay a sleeping man.’

    Then up and gat the seventh o’ them,
      And never a word spake he;
    But he has striped his bright brown brand
      Out through Clerk Saunders’ fair bodye.

     striped] thrust.

    Clerk Saunders he started, and Margaret she turn’d
      Into his arms as asleep she lay;
    And sad and silent was the night
      That was atween thir twae.

    And they lay still and sleepit sound
      Until the day began to daw’;
    And kindly she to him did say,
      ‘It is time, true love, you were awa’.’

    But he lay still, and sleepit sound,
      Albeit the sun began to sheen;
    She look’d atween her and the wa’,
      And dull and drowsie were his e’en.

    Then in and came her father dear;
      Said, ‘Let a’ your mourning be;
    I’ll carry the dead corse to the clay,
      And I’ll come back and comfort thee.’

    ‘Comfort weel your seven sons,
      For comforted I will never be:
    I ween ’twas neither knave nor loon
      Was in the bower last night wi’ me.’

    The clinking bell gaed through the town,
      To carry the dead corse to the clay;
    And Clerk Saunders stood at may Margaret’s window,
      I wot, an hour before the day.

    ‘Are ye sleeping, Marg’ret?’ he says,
      ‘Or are ye waking presentlie?
    Give me my faith and troth again,
      I wot, true love, I gied to thee.’


    ‘Your faith and troth ye sail never get,
      Nor our true love sail never twin,
    Until ye come within my bower,
      And kiss me cheik and chin.’

    ‘My mouth it is full cold, Marg’ret;
      It has the smell, now, of the ground;
    And if I kiss thy comely mouth,
      Thy days of life will not be lang.

    ‘O cocks are crowing a merry midnight;
      I wot the wild fowls are boding day;
    Give me my faith and troth again,
      And let me fare me on my way.’

    ‘Thy faith and troth thou sallna get,
      And our true love sail never twin,
    Until ye tell what comes o’ women,
      I wot, who die in strong traivelling?’

    ‘Their beds are made in the heavens high,
      Down at the foot of our good Lord’s knee,
    Weel set about wi’ gillyflowers;
      I wot, sweet company for to see.

    ‘O cocks are crowing a merry midnight;
      I wot the wild fowls are boding day;
    The psalms of heaven will soon be sung,
      And I, ere now, will be miss’d away.’

    Then she has taken a crystal wand,
      And she has stroken her troth thereon;
    She has given it him out at the shot-window,
      Wi’ mony a sad sigh and heavy groan.

     twin] part in two.

    ‘I thank ye, Marg’ret; I thank ye, Marg’ret;
      And ay I thank ye heartilie;
    Gin ever the dead come for the quick,
      Be sure, Marg’ret, I’ll come for thee.’

    It’s hosen and shoon, and gown alone,
      She climb’d the wall, and follow’d him,
    Until she came to the green forest,
      And there she lost the sight o’ him.

    ‘Is there ony room at your head, Saunders?
      Is there ony room at your feet?
    Or ony room at your side, Saunders,
      Where fain, fain, I wad sleep?’

    ‘There’s nae room at my head, Marg’ret,
      There’s nae room at my feet;
    My bed it is fu’ lowly now,
      Amang the hungry worms I sleep.

    ‘Cauld mould is my covering now,
      But and my winding-sheet;
    The dew it falls nae sooner down
      Than my resting-place is weet.

    ‘But plait a wand o’ bonny birk,
      And lay it on my breast;
    And shed a tear upon my grave,
      And wish my saul gude rest.’

    Then up and crew the red, red cock,
      And up and crew the gray:
    ‘’Tis time, ’tis time, my dear Marg’ret,
      That you were going away.


    ‘And fair Marg’ret, and rare Marg’ret,
      And Marg’ret o’ veritie,
    Gin e’er ye love another man,
      Ne’er love him as ye did me.’


_372._ _Fair Annie_

    The reivers they stole Fair Annie,
      As she walk’d by the sea;
    But a noble knight was her ransom soon,
      Wi’ gowd and white monie.

    She bided in strangers’ land wi’ him,
      And none knew whence she cam;
    She lived in the castle wi’ her love,
      But never told her name.

    ‘It’s narrow, narrow, mak your bed,
      And learn to lie your lane;
    For I’m gaun owre the sea, Fair Annie,
      A braw Bride to bring hame.
    Wi’ her I will get gowd and gear,
      Wi’ you I ne’er gat nane.

    ‘But wha will bake my bridal bread,
      Or brew my bridal ale?
    And wha will welcome my bright Bride,
      That I bring owre the dale?’

    ‘It’s I will bake your bridal bread,
      And brew your bridal ale;
    And I will welcome your bright Bride,
      That you bring owre the dale.’


    ‘But she that welcomes my bright Bride
      Maun gang like maiden fair;
    She maun lace on her robe sae jimp,
      And comely braid her hair.

    ‘Bind up, bind up your yellow hair,
      And tie it on your neck;
    And see you look as maiden-like
      As the day that first we met.’

    ‘O how can I gang maiden-like,
      When maiden I am nane?
    Have I not borne six sons to thee,
      And am wi’ child again?’

    ‘I’ll put cooks into my kitchen,
      And stewards in my hall,
    And I’ll have bakers for my bread,
      And brewers for my ale;
    But you’re to welcome my bright Bride,
      That I bring owre the dale.’

    Three months and a day were gane and past,
      Fair Annie she gat word
    That her love’s ship was come at last,
      Wi’ his bright young Bride aboard.

    She ’s ta’en her young son in her arms,
      Anither in her hand;
    And she’s gane up to the highest tower,
      Looks over sea and land.

     jimp] trim.

    ‘Come doun, come doun, my mother dear,
      Come aff the castle wa’!
    I fear if langer ye stand there,
      Ye’ll let yoursell doun fa’.’

    She’s ta’en a cake o’ the best bread,
      A stoup o’ the best wine,
    And a’ the keys upon her arm,
      And to the yett is gane.

    ‘O ye’re welcome hame, my ain gude lord,
      To your castles and your towers;
    Ye’re welcome hame, my ain gude lord,
      To your ha’s, but and your bowers.
    And welcome to your hame, fair lady!
      For a’ that’s here is yours.’

    ‘O whatna lady’s that, my lord,
      That welcomes you and me?
    Gin I be lang about this place,
      Her friend I mean to be.’

    Fair Annie served the lang tables
      Wi’ the white bread and the wine;
    But ay she drank the wan water
      To keep her colour fine.

    And she gaed by the first table,
      And smiled upon them a’;
    But ere she reach’d the second table,
      The tears began to fa’.

     yett] gate.

    She took a napkin lang and white,
      And hung it on a pin;
    It was to wipe away the tears,
      As she gaed out and in.

    When bells were rung and mass was sung,
      And a’ men bound for bed,
    The bridegroom and the bonny Bride
      In ae chamber were laid.

    Fair Annie’s ta’en a harp in her hand,
      To harp thir twa asleep;
    But ay, as she harpit and she sang,
      Fu’ sairly did she weep.

    ‘O gin my sons were seven rats,
      Rinnin’ on the castle wa’,
    And I mysell a great grey cat,
      I soon wad worry them a’!

    ‘O gin my sons were seven hares,
      Rinnin’ owre yon lily lea,
    And I mysell a good greyhound,
      Soon worried they a’ should be!’

    Then out and spak the bonny young Bride,
      In bride-bed where she lay:
    ‘That’s like my sister Annie,’ she says;
      ‘Wha is it doth sing and play?

    ‘I’ll put on my gown,’ said the new-come Bride,
      ‘And my shoes upon my feet;
    I will see wha doth sae sadly sing,
      And what is it gars her greet.


    ‘What ails you, what ails you, my housekeeper,
      That ye mak sic a mane?
    Has ony wine-barrel cast its girds,
      Or is a’ your white bread gane?’

    ‘It isna because my wine is spilt,
      Or that my white bread’s gane;
    But because I’ve lost my true love’s love,
      And he’s wed to anither ane.’

    ‘Noo tell me wha was your father?’ she says,
      ‘Noo tell me wha was your mother?
    And had ye ony sister?’ she says,
      ‘And had ye ever a brother?’

    ‘The Earl of Wemyss was my father,
      The Countess of Wemyss my mother,
    Young Elinor she was my sister dear,
      And Lord John he was my brother.’

    ‘If the Earl of Wemyss was your father,
      I wot sae was he mine;
    And it’s O my sister Annie!
      Your love ye sallna tyne.

    ‘Tak your husband, my sister dear;
      You ne’er were wrang’d for me,
    Beyond a kiss o’ his merry mouth
      As we cam owre the sea.

    ‘Seven ships, loaded weel,
      Cam owre the sea wi’ me;
    Ane o’ them will tak me hame,
      And six I’ll gie to thee.’

     tyne] lose.


_373._ _Edward, Edward_

    ‘Why does your brand sae drop wi’ blude,
            Edward, Edward?
    Why does your brand sae drop wi’ blude,
        And why sae sad gang ye, O?’
    ‘O I hae kill’d my hawk sae gude,
            Mither, mither;
    O I hae kill’d my hawk sae gude,
        And I had nae mair but he, O.’

    ‘Your hawk’s blude was never sae red,
            Edward, Edward;
    Your hawk’s blude was never sae red,
        My dear son, I tell thee, O.’
    ‘O I hae kill’d my red-roan steed,
            Mither, mither;
    O I hae kill’d my red-roan steed,
        That erst was sae fair and free, O.’

    ‘Your steed was auld, and ye hae got mair,
            Edward, Edward;
    Your steed was auld, and ye hae got mair;
        Some other dule ye dree, O.’
    ‘O I hae kill’d my father dear,
            Mither, mither;
    O I hae kill’d my father dear,
        Alas, and wae is me, O!’

     dule ye dree] grief you suffer.

    ‘And whatten penance will ye dree for that,
            Edward, Edward?
    Whatten penance will ye dree for that?
        My dear son, now tell me, O.’
    ‘I’ll set my feet in yonder boat,
            Mither, mither;
    I’ll set my feet in yonder boat,
        And I’ll fare over the sea, O.’

    ‘And what will ye do wi’ your tow’rs and your ha’,
            Edward, Edward?
    And what will ye do wi’ your tow’rs and your ha’,
        That were sae fair to see, O?’
    ‘I’ll let them stand till they doun fa’,
            Mither, mither;
    I’ll let them stand till they doun fa’,
        For here never mair maun I be, O.’

    ‘And what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
            Edward, Edward?
    And what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
        When ye gang owre the sea, O?’
    ‘The warld’s room: let them beg through life,
            Mither, mither;
    The warld’s room: let them beg through life;
        For them never mair will I see, O.’

    ‘And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear.
            Edward, Edward?
    And what will ye leave to your ain mither dear,
        My dear son, now tell me, O?’
    ‘The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,
            Mither, mither;
    The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear:
        Sic counsels ye gave to me, O!’


_374._ _Edom o’ Gordon_

    It fell about the Martinmas,
      When the wind blew shrill and cauld,
    Said Edom o’ Gordon to his men,
      ‘We maun draw to a hauld.

    ‘And what a hauld sall we draw to,
      My merry men and me?
    We will gae to the house o’ the Rodes,
      To see that fair ladye.’

    The lady stood on her castle wa’,
      Beheld baith dale and down;
    There she was ware of a host of men
      Cam riding towards the town.

    ‘O see ye not, my merry men a’,
      O see ye not what I see?
    Methinks I see a host of men;
      I marvel wha they be.’

    She ween’d it had been her lovely lord,
      As he cam riding hame;
    It was the traitor, Edom o’ Gordon,
      Wha reck’d nae sin nor shame.

     town] stead.

    She had nae sooner buskit hersell,
      And putten on her gown,
    But Edom o’ Gordon an’ his men
      Were round about the town.

    They had nae sooner supper set,
      Nae sooner said the grace,
    But Edom o’ Gordon an’ his men
      Were lighted about the place.

    The lady ran up to her tower-head,
      Sae fast as she could hie,
    To see if by her fair speeches
      She could wi’ him agree.

    ‘Come doun to me, ye lady gay,
      Come doun, come doun to me;
    This night sall ye lig within mine arms,
      To-morrow my bride sall be.’

    ‘I winna come down, ye fals Gordon,
      I winna come down to thee;
    I winna forsake my ain dear lord,
      That is sae far frae me.’

    ‘Gie owre your house, ye lady fair,
      Gie owre your house to me;
    Or I sall brenn yoursel therein,
      But and your babies three.’

    ‘I winna gie owre, ye fals Gordon,
      To nae sic traitor as yee;
    And if ye brenn my ain dear babes,
      My lord sail mak ye dree.

     buskit] attired.

    ‘Now reach my pistol, Glaud, my man,
      And charge ye weel my gun;
    For, but an I pierce that bluidy butcher,
      My babes, we been undone!’

    She stood upon her castle wa’,
      And let twa bullets flee:
    She miss’d that bluidy butcher’s heart,
      And only razed his knee.

    ‘Set fire to the house!’ quo’ fals Gordon,
      All wud wi’ dule and ire:
    ‘Fals lady, ye sail rue this deid
      As ye brenn in the fire!’

    Wae worth, wae worth ye, Jock, my man!
      I paid ye weel your fee;
    Why pu’ ye out the grund-wa’ stane,
      Lets in the reek to me?

    ‘And e’en wae worth ye, Jock, my man!
      I paid ye weel your hire;
    Why pu’ ye out the grund-wa’ stane,
      To me lets in the fire?’

    ‘Ye paid me weel my hire, ladye,
      Ye paid me weel my fee:
    But now I’m Edom o’ Gordon’s man--
      Maun either do or die.’

    O then bespake her little son,
      Sat on the nurse’s knee:
    Says, ‘Mither dear, gie owre this house,
      For the reek it smithers me.’

     wud] mad. grund-wa’] ground-wall.

    ‘I wad gie a’ my gowd, my bairn,
      Sae wad I a’ my fee,
    For ae blast o’ the western wind,
      To blaw the reek frae thee.’

    O then bespake her dochter dear--
      She was baith jimp and sma’:
    ‘O row me in a pair o’ sheets,
      And tow me owre the wa’!’

    They row’d her in a pair o’ sheets,
      And tow’d her owre the wa’;
    But on the point o’ Gordon’s spear
      She gat a deadly fa’.

    O bonnie, bonnie was her mouth,
      And cherry were her cheiks,
    And clear, clear was her yellow hair,
      Whereon the red blood dreips.

    Then wi’ his spear he turn’d her owre;
      O gin her face was wane!
    He said, ‘Ye are the first that e’er
      I wish’d alive again.’

    He turn’d her owre and owre again;
      O gin her skin was white!
    ‘I might hae spared that bonnie face
      To hae been some man’s delight.

    ‘Busk and boun, my merry men a’,
      For ill dooms I do guess;
    I canna look in that bonnie face
      As it lies on the grass.’

     jimp] slender, trim. row] roll, wrap. Busk and boun] trim up and
     prepare to go.

    ‘Wha looks to freits, my master dear,
      It’s freits will follow them;
    Let it ne’er be said that Edom o’ Gordon
      Was daunted by a dame.’

    But when the lady saw the fire
      Come flaming owre her head,
    She wept, and kiss’d her children twain,
      Says, ‘Bairns, we been but dead.’

    The Gordon then his bugle blew,
      And said, ‘Awa’, awa’!
    This house o’ the Rodes is a’ in a flame;
      I hauld it time to ga’.’

    And this way lookit her ain dear lord,
      As he cam owre the lea;
    He saw his castle a’ in a lowe,
      As far as he could see.

    Then sair, O sair, his mind misgave,
      And all his heart was wae:
    ‘Put on, put on, my wighty men,
      Sae fast as ye can gae.

    ‘Put on, put on, my wighty men,
      Sae fast as ye can drie!
    For he that’s hindmost o’ the thrang
      Sall ne’er get good o’ me.’

    Then some they rade, and some they ran,
      Out-owre the grass and bent;
    But ere the foremost could win up,
      Baith lady and babes were brent.

     freits] ill omens. lowe] flame. wighty] stout, doughty.

    And after the Gordon he is gane,
      Sae fast as he might drie;
    And soon i’ the Gordon’s foul heart’s blude
      He’s wroken his dear ladye.

     wroken] avenged.


_375._ _The Queen’s Marie_

    Marie Hamilton’s to the kirk gane,
      Wi’ ribbons in her hair;
    The King thought mair o’ Marie Hamilton
      Than ony that were there.

    Marie Hamilton’s to the kirk gane
      Wi’ ribbons on her breast;
    The King thought mair o’ Marie Hamilton
      Than he listen’d to the priest.

    Marie Hamilton’s to the kirk gane,
      Wi’ gloves upon her hands;
    The King thought mair o’ Marie Hamilton
      Than the Queen and a’ her lands.

    She hadna been about the King’s court
      A month, but barely one,
    Till she was beloved by a’ the King’s court
      And the King the only man.

    She hadna been about the King’s court
      A month, but barely three,
    Till frae the King’s court Marie Hamilton,
      Marie Hamilton durstna be.


    The King is to the Abbey gane,
      To pu’ the Abbey tree,
    To scale the babe frae Marie’s heart;
      But the thing it wadna be.

    O she has row’d it in her apron,
      And set it on the sea--
    ‘Gae sink ye or swim ye, bonny babe,
      Ye’se get nae mair o’ me.’

    Word is to the kitchen gane,
      And word is to the ha’,
    And word is to the noble room
      Amang the ladies a’,
    That Marie Hamilton’s brought to bed,
      And the bonny babe’s miss’d and awa’.

    Scarcely had she lain down again,
      And scarcely fa’en asleep,
    When up and started our gude Queen
      Just at her bed-feet;
    Saying--‘Marie Hamilton, where’s your babe?
      For I am sure I heard it greet.’

    ‘O no, O no, my noble Queen!
      Think no sic thing to be;
    ’Twas but a stitch into my side,
      And sair it troubles me!’

    ‘Get up, get up, Marie Hamilton:
      Get up and follow me;
    For I am going to Edinburgh town,
      A rich wedding for to see.’

     row’d] rolled, wrapped. greet] cry.

    O slowly, slowly rase she up,
      And slowly put she on;
    And slowly rade she out the way
      Wi’ mony a weary groan.

    The Queen was clad in scarlet,
      Her merry maids all in green;
    And every town that they cam to,
      They took Marie for the Queen.

    ‘Ride hooly, hooly, gentlemen,
      Ride hooly now wi’ me!
    For never, I am sure, a wearier burd
      Rade in your companie.’--

    But little wist Marie Hamilton,
      When she rade on the brown,
    That she was gaen to Edinburgh town,
      And a’ to be put down.

    ‘Why weep ye so, ye burgess wives,
      Why look ye so on me?
    O I am going to Edinburgh town,
      A rich wedding to see.’

    When she gaed up the tolbooth stairs,
      The corks frae her heels did flee;
    And lang or e’er she cam down again,
      She was condemn’d to die.

    When she cam to the Netherbow port,
      She laugh’d loud laughters three;
    But when she came to the gallows foot
      The tears blinded her e’e.

     hooly] gently.

    ‘Yestreen the Queen had four Maries,
      The night she’ll hae but three;
    There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaton,
      And Marie Carmichael, and me.

    ‘O often have I dress’d my Queen
      And put gowd upon her hair;
    But now I’ve gotten for my reward
      The gallows to be my share.

    ‘Often have I dress’d my Queen
      And often made her bed;
    But now I’ve gotten for my reward
      The gallows tree to tread.

    ‘I charge ye all, ye mariners,
      When ye sail owre the faem,
    Let neither my father nor mother get wit
      But that I’m coming hame.

    ‘I charge ye all, ye mariners,
      That sail upon the sea,
    That neither my father nor mother get wit
      The dog’s death I’m to die.

    ‘For if my father and mother got wit,
      And my bold brethren three,
    O mickle wad be the gude red blude
      This day wad be spilt for me!

    ‘O little did my mother ken,
      The day she cradled me,
    The lands I was to travel in
      Or the death I was to die!


_376._ _Binnorie_

    There were twa sisters sat in a bour;
      _Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
    There cam a knight to be their wooer,
      _By the bonnie milldams o’ Binnorie_.

    He courted the eldest with glove and ring,
    But he lo’ed the youngest abune a thing.

    The eldest she was vexèd sair,
    And sair envied her sister fair.

    Upon a morning fair and clear,
    She cried upon her sister dear:

    ‘O sister, sister, tak my hand,
    And let’s go down to the river-strand.’

    She’s ta’en her by the lily hand,
    And led her down to the river-strand.

    The youngest stood upon a stane,
    The eldest cam and push’d her in.

    ‘O sister, sister, reach your hand!
    And ye sall be heir o’ half my land:

    ‘O sister, reach me but your glove!
    And sweet William sall be your love.’

    Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam,
    Until she cam to the miller’s dam.

    Out then cam the miller’s son,
    And saw the fair maid soummin’ in.

    ‘O father, father, draw your dam!
    There’s either a mermaid or a milk-white swan.’

     soummin’] swimming.

    The miller hasted and drew his dam,
    And there he found a drown’d womàn.

    You couldna see her middle sma’,
    Her gowden girdle was sae braw.

    You couldna see her lily feet,
    Her gowden fringes were sae deep.

    All amang her yellow hair
    A string o’ pearls was twisted rare.

    You couldna see her fingers sma’,
    Wi’ diamond rings they were cover’d a’.

    And by there cam a harper fine,
    That harpit to the king at dine.

    And when he look’d that lady on,
    He sigh’d and made a heavy moan.

    He’s made a harp of her breast-bane,
    Whose sound wad melt a heart of stane.

    He’s ta’en three locks o’ her yellow hair,
    And wi’ them strung his harp sae rare.

    He went into her father’s hall,
    And there was the court assembled all.

    He laid his harp upon a stane,
    And straight it began to play by lane.

    ‘O yonder sits my father, the King,
    And yonder sits my mother, the Queen;
    ‘And yonder stands my brother Hugh,
    And by him my William, sweet and true.’

    But the last tune that the harp play’d then--
      _Binnorie, O Binnorie_!
    Was, ‘Woe to my sister, false Helèn!’
      _By the bonnie milldams o’ Binnorie._


_377._ _The Bonnie House o’ Airlie_

    It fell on a day, and a bonnie simmer day,
      When green grew aits and barley,
    That there fell out a great dispute
      Between Argyll and Airlie.

    Argyll has raised an hunder men,
      An hunder harness’d rarely,
    And he’s awa’ by the back of Dunkell,
      To plunder the castle of Airlie.

    Lady Ogilvie looks o’er her bower-window,
      And O but she looks warely!
    And there she spied the great Argyll,
      Come to plunder the bonnie house of Airlie.

    ‘Come down, come down, my Lady Ogilvie,
      Come down and kiss me fairly:’
    ‘O I winna kiss the fause Argyll,
      If he shouldna leave a standing stane in Airlie.’

    He hath taken her by the left shoulder,
      Says, ‘Dame, where lies thy dowry?’
    ‘O it’s east and west yon wan water side,
      And it’s down by the banks of the Airlie.’


    They hae sought it up, they hae sought it down,
      They hae sought it maist severely,
    Till they fand it in the fair plum-tree
      That shines on the bowling-green of Airlie.

    He hath taken her by the middle sae small,
      And O but she grat sairly!
    And laid her down by the bonnie burn-side,
      Till they plunder’d the castle of Airlie.

    ‘Gif my gude lord war here this night,
      As he is with King Charlie,
    Neither you, nor ony ither Scottish lord,
      Durst avow to the plundering of Airlie.

    ‘Gif my gude lord war now at hame,
      As he is with his king,
    There durst nae a Campbell in a’ Argyll
      Set fit on Airlie green.

    ‘Ten bonnie sons I have borne unto him,
      The eleventh ne’er saw his daddy;
    But though I had an hunder mair,
      I’d gie them a’ to King Charlie!’


_378._ _The Wife of Usher’s Well_

    There lived a wife at Usher’s well,
      And a wealthy wife was she;
    She had three stout and stalwart sons,
      And sent them o’er the sea.


    They hadna been a week from her,
      A week but barely ane,
    When word came to the carline wife
      That her three sons were gane.

    They hadna been a week from her,
      A week but barely three,
    When word came to the carline wife
      That her sons she’d never see.

    ‘I wish the wind may never cease.
      Nor fashes in the flood,
    Till my three sons come hame to me,
      In earthly flesh and blood!’

    It fell about the Martinmas,
      When nights are lang and mirk,
    The carline wife’s three sons came hame,
      And their hats were o’ the birk.

    It neither grew in syke nor ditch,
      Nor yet in ony sheugh;
    But at the gates o’ Paradise
      That birk grew fair eneugh.

    ‘Blow up the fire, my maidens!
      Bring water from the well!
    For a’ my house shall feast this night,
      Since my three sons are well.’

    And she has made to them a bed,
      She’s made it large and wide;
    And she’s ta’en her mantle her about,
      Sat down at the bedside.

     fashes] troubles. syke] marsh. sheugh] trench.

    Up then crew the red, red cock,
      And up and crew the gray;
    The eldest to the youngest said.
      ‘’Tis time we were away.’

    The cock he hadna craw’d but once,
      And clapp’d his wings at a’,
    When the youngest to the eldest said,
      ‘Brother, we must awa’.

    ‘The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,
      The channerin’ worm doth chide;
    Gin we be miss’d out o’ our place,
      A sair pain we maun bide.’

    ‘Lie still, lie still but a little wee while,
      Lie still but if we may;
    Gin my mother should miss us when she wakes,
      She’ll go mad ere it be day.’

    ‘Fare ye weel, my mother dear!
      Fareweel to barn and byre!
    And fare ye weel, the bonny lass
      That kindles my mother’s fire!’

     _378._ channerin’] fretting.


_379._ _The Three Ravens_

    There were three ravens sat on a tree,
    They were as black as they might be.

    The one of them said to his make,
    ‘Where shall we our breakfast take?’

     _379._ make] mate.

    ‘Down in yonder greene field
    There lies a knight slain under his shield;

    ‘His hounds they lie down at his feet,
    So well they can their master keep;

    ‘His hawks they flie so eagerly,
    There ’s no fowl dare come him nigh.’

    Down there comes a fallow doe
    As great with young as she might goe.

    She lift up his bloudy head
    And kist his wounds that were so red.

    She gat him up upon her back
    And carried him to earthen lake.

    She buried him before the prime,
    She was dead herself ere evensong time.

    God send every gentleman
    Such hounds, such hawks, and such a leman.


_380._ _The Twa Corbies_

(SCOTTISH VERSION)

    As I was walking all alane
    I heard twa corbies making a mane:
    The tane unto the tither did say,
    ‘Whar sall we gang and dine the day?’

     _380._ corbies] ravens.

    ‘--In behint yon auld fail dyke
    I wot there lies a new-slain knight;
    And naebody kens that he lies there
    But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair.

    ‘His hound is to the hunting gane,
    His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
    His lady’s ta’en anither mate,
    So we may mak our dinner sweet.

    ‘Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane,
    And I’ll pike out his bonny blue e’en:
    Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair
    We’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.

    ‘Mony a one for him maks mane,
    But nane sall ken whar he is gane:
    O’er his white banes, when they are bare,
    The wind sall blaw for evermair.’

     _380._ fail] turf. hause] neck. theek] thatch.


_381._ _A Lyke-Wake Dirge_

    This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

    When thou from hence away art past,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    To Whinny-muir thou com’st at last;
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

     _381._ fleet] house-room.

    If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    Sit thee down and put them on;
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

    If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

    From Whinny-muir when thou may’st pass,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    To Brig o’ Dread thou com’st at last;
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

    From Brig o’ Dread when thou may’st pass,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last;
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

    If ever thou gavest meat or drink,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    The fire sall never make thee shrink;
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

    If meat or drink thou ne’er gav’st nane,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    The fire will burn thee to the bare bane;
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.

    This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
    --_Every nighte and alle_,
    Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
      _And Christe receive thy saule_.


_382._ _The Seven Virgins._

A CAROL

    All under the leaves and the leaves of life
      I met with virgins seven,
    And one of them was Mary mild,
      Our Lord’s mother of Heaven.

    ‘O what are you seeking, you seven fair maids.
      All under the leaves of life?
    Come tell, come tell, what seek you
      All under the leaves of life?’

    ‘We’re seeking for no leaves, Thomas,
      But for a friend of thine;
    We’re seeking for sweet Jesus Christ,
      To be our guide and thine.’

    ‘Go down, go down, to yonder town,
      And sit in the gallery,
    And there you’ll see sweet Jesus Christ
      Nail’d to a big yew-tree.’

    So down they went to yonder town
      As fast as foot could fall,
    And many a grievous bitter tear
      From the virgins’ eyes did fall.

    ‘O peace, Mother, O peace, Mother,
      Your weeping doth me grieve:
    I must suffer this,’ He said,
      ‘For Adam and for Eve.


    ‘O Mother, take you John Evangelist
      All for to be your son,
    And he will comfort you sometimes,
      Mother, as I have done.’

    ‘O come, thou John Evangelist,
      Thou’rt welcome unto me;
    But more welcome my own dear Son,
      Whom I nursed on my knee.’

    Then He laid His head on His right shoulder,
      Seeing death it struck Him nigh--
    ‘The Holy Ghost be with your soul,
      I die, Mother dear, I die.’

    O the rose, the gentle rose,
      And the fennel that grows so green!
    God give us grace in every place
      To pray for our king and queen.

    Furthermore for our enemies all
      Our prayers they should be strong:
    Amen, good Lord; your charity
      Is the ending of my song.


_383._ _Two Rivers_

    Says Tweed to Till--
        ‘What gars ye rin sae still?’
      Says Till to Tweed--
    ‘Though ye rin with speed
      And I rin slaw,
    For ae man that ye droon
      I droon twa.’


_384._ _Cradle Song_

    O my deir hert, young Jesus sweit,
    Prepare thy creddil in my spreit,
    And I sall rock thee in my hert
    And never mair from thee depart.

    But I sall praise thee evermoir
    With sangis sweit unto thy gloir;
    The knees of my hert sall I bow,
    And sing that richt _Balulalow_!


_385._ _The Call_

        My blood so red
        For thee was shed,
    Come home again, come home again;
    My own sweet heart, come home again!
        You’ve gone astray
        Out of your way,
    Come home again, come home again!


_386._ _The Bonny Earl of Murray_

    Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands,
      O where hae ye been?
    They hae slain the Earl of Murray,
      And hae laid him on the green.

    Now wae be to thee, Huntley!
      And whairfore did ye sae!
    I bade you bring him wi’ you.
      But forbade you him to slay.


    He was a braw gallant,
      And he rid at the ring;
    And the bonny Earl of Murray,
      O he might hae been a king!

    He was a braw gallant,
      And he play’d at the ba’;
    And the bonny Earl of Murray
      Was the flower amang them a’!

    He was a braw gallant,
      And he play’d at the gluve;
    And the bonny Earl of Murray,
      O he was the Queen’s luve!

    O lang will his Lady
      Look owre the Castle Downe,
    Ere she see the Earl of Murray
      Come sounding through the town!


_387._ _Helen of Kirconnell_

    I wish I were where Helen lies,
    Night and day on me she cries;
    O that I were where Helen lies,
      On fair Kirconnell lea!

    Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
    And curst the hand that fired the shot,
    When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
      And died to succour me!

    O think na ye my heart was sair,
    When my Love dropp’d and spak nae mair!
    There did she swoon wi’ meikle care,
      On fair Kirconnell lea.


    As I went down the water side,
    None but my foe to be my guide,
    None but my foe to be my guide,
      On fair Kirconnell lea;

    I lighted down my sword to draw,
    I hackèd him in pieces sma’,
    I hackèd him in pieces sma’,
      For her sake that died for me.

    O Helen fair, beyond compare!
    I’ll mak a garland o’ thy hair,
    Shall bind my heart for evermair,
      Until the day I die!

    O that I were where Helen lies!
    Night and day on me she cries;
    Out of my bed she bids me rise,
      Says, ‘Haste, and come to me!’

    O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
    If I were with thee, I’d be blest,
    Where thou lies low and taks thy rest,
      On fair Kirconnell lea.

    I wish my grave were growing green,
    A winding-sheet drawn owre my e’en,
    And I in Helen’s arms lying,
      On fair Kirconnell lea.

    I wish I were where Helen lies!
    Night and day on me she cries;
    And I am weary of the skies,
      For her sake that died for me.


_388._ _Waly, Waly_

    O waly, waly, up the bank,
      And waly, waly, doun the brae,
    And waly, waly, yon burn-side,
      Where I and my Love wont to gae!
    I lean’d my back unto an aik,
      I thocht it was a trustie tree;
    But first it bow’d and syne it brak--
      Sae my true love did lichtlie me.

    O waly, waly, gin love be bonnie
      A little time while it is new!
    But when ’tis auld it waxeth cauld,
      And fades awa’ like morning dew.
    O wherefore should I busk my heid,
      Or wherefore should I kame my hair?
    For my true Love has me forsook,
      And says he’ll never lo’e me mair.

    Now Arthur’s Seat sall be my bed,
      The sheets sall ne’er be ’filed by me;
    Saint Anton’s well sall be my drink;
      Since my true Love has forsaken me.
    Marti’mas wind, when wilt thou blaw,
      And shake the green leaves aff the tree?
    O gentle Death, when wilt thou come?
      For of my life I am wearìe.

    ’Tis not the frost, that freezes fell,
      Nor blawing snaw’s inclemencie,
    ’Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry;
      But my Love’s heart grown cauld to me.
    When we cam in by Glasgow toun,
      We were a comely sicht to see;
    My Love was clad in the black velvèt,
      And I mysel in cramasie.

    But had I wist, before I kist,
      That love had been sae ill to win,
    I had lock’d my heart in a case o’ gowd.
      And pinn’d it wi’ a siller pin.
    And O! if my young babe were born,
      And set upon the nurse’s knee;
    And I mysel were dead and gane,
      And the green grass growing over me!

     _388._ cramasie] crimson.


_389._ _Barbara Allen’s Cruelty_

    In Scarlet town, where I was born,
      There was a fair maid dwellin’,
    Made every youth cry _Well-a-way_!
      Her name was Barbara Allen.

    All in the merry month of May,
      When green buds they were swellin’,
    Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay,
      For love of Barbara Allen.

    He sent his man in to her then,
      To the town where she was dwellin’,
    ‘O haste and come to my master dear,
      If your name be Barbara Allen.’

    So slowly, slowly rase she up,
      And slowly she came nigh him,
    And when she drew the curtain by--
      ‘Young man, I think you’re dyin’.’


    ‘O it’s I am sick and very very sick,
      And it’s all for Barbara Allen.’
    ‘O the better for me ye’se never be,
      Tho’ your heart’s blood were a-spillin’!

    ‘O dinna ye mind, young man,’ says she,
      ‘When the red wine ye were fillin’,
    That ye made the healths go round and round,
      And slighted Barbara Allen?’

    He turn’d his face unto the wall,
      And death was with him dealin’:
    ‘Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all,
      And be kind to Barbara Allen!’

    As she was walking o’er the fields,
      She heard the dead-bell knellin’;
    And every jow the dead-bell gave
      Cried ‘Woe to Barbara Allen.’

    ‘O mother, mother, make my bed,
      O make it saft and narrow:
    My love has died for me to-day,
      I’ll die for him to-morrow.

    ‘Farewell,’ she said, ‘ye virgins all,
      And shun the fault I fell in:
    Henceforth take warning by the fall
      Of cruel Barbara Allen.’

     _389._ jow] beat, toll.


_390._ _Pipe and Can_


I

    The Indian weed witherèd quite;
    Green at morn, cut down at night;
    Shows thy decay: all flesh is hay:
        Thus think, then drink Tobacco.


    And when the smoke ascends on high,
    Think thou behold’st the vanity
    Of worldly stuff, gone with a puff:
        Thus think, then drink Tobacco.

    But when the pipe grows foul within,
    Think of thy soul defiled with sin,
    And that the fire doth it require:
        Thus think, then drink Tobacco.

    The ashes, that are left behind,
    May serve to put thee still in mind
    That unto dust return thou must:
        Thus think, then drink Tobacco.


II

    When as the chill Charokko blows,
      And Winter tells a heavy tale;
    When pyes and daws and rooks and crows
    Sit cursing of the frosts and snows;
            Then give me ale.

    Ale in a Saxon rumkin then,
      Such as will make grimalkin prate;
    Bids valour burgeon in tall men,
    Quickens the poet’s wit and pen,
            Despises fate.

    Ale, that the absent battle fights,
      And frames the march of Swedish drum,
    Disputes with princes, laws, and rights,
    What’s done and past tells mortal wights,
            And what’s to come.

     Charokko] Scirocco.

    Ale, that the plowman’s heart up-keeps
      And equals it with tyrants’ thrones,
    That wipes the eye that over-weeps,
    And lulls in sure and dainty sleeps
            Th’ o’er-wearied bones.

    Grandchild of Ceres, Bacchus’ daughter,
      Wine’s emulous neighbour, though but stale,
    Ennobling all the nymphs of water,
    And filling each man’s heart with laughter--
            Ha! give me ale!


_391._ _Love will find out the Way_

    Over the mountains
      And over the waves,
    Under the fountains
      And under the graves;
    Under floods that are deepest,
      Which Neptune obey,
    Over rocks that are steepest,
      Love will find out the way.

    When there is no place
      For the glow-worm to lie,
    When there is no space
      For receipt of a fly;
    When the midge dares not venture
      Lest herself fast she lay,
    If Love come, he will enter
      And will find out the way.


    You may esteem him
      A child for his might;
    Or you may deem him
      A coward for his flight;
    But if she whom Love doth honour
      Be conceal’d from the day--
    Set a thousand guards upon her,
      Love will find out the way.

    Some think to lose him
      By having him confined;
    And some do suppose him,
      Poor heart! to be blind;
    But if ne’er so close ye wall him,
      Do the best that ye may,
    Blind Love, if so ye call him,
      He will find out his way.

    You may train the eagle
      To stoop to your fist;
    Or you may inveigle
      The Phœnix of the east;
    The lioness, you may move her
      To give over her prey;
    But you’ll ne’er stop a lover--
      He will find out the way.

    If the earth it should part him,
      He would gallop it o’er;
    If the seas should o’erthwart him,
      He would swim to the shore;
    Should his Love become a swallow,
      Through the air to stray,
    Love will lend wings to follow,
      And will find out the way.


    There is no striving
      To cross his intent;
    There is no contriving
      His plots to prevent;
    But if once the message greet him
      That his True Love doth stay,
    If Death should come and meet him,
      Love will find out the way!


_392._ _Phillada flouts Me_

    O what a plague is love!
      How shall I bear it?
    She will inconstant prove,
      I greatly fear it.
    She so torments my mind
      That my strength faileth,
    And wavers with the wind
      As a ship saileth.
    Please her the best I may,
    She loves still to gainsay;
    Alack and well-a-day!
      Phillada flouts me.

    At the fair yesterday
      She did pass by me;
    She look’d another way
      And would not spy me:
    I woo’d her for to dine,
      But could not get her;
    Will had her to the wine--
      He might entreat her.
    With Daniel she did dance,
    On me she look’d askance:
    O thrice unhappy chance!
      Phillada flouts me.

    Fair maid, be not so coy,
      Do not disdain me!
    I am my mother’s joy:
      Sweet, entertain me!
    She’ll give me, when she dies,
      All that is fitting:
    Her poultry and her bees,
      And her goose sitting,
    A pair of mattrass beds,
    And a bag full of shreds;
    And yet, for all this guedes,
      Phillada flouts me!

    She hath a clout of mine
      Wrought with blue Coventry,
    Which she keeps for a sign
      Of my fidelity:
    But i’ faith, if she flinch
      She shall not wear it;
    To Tib, my t’other wench,
      I mean to bear it.
    And yet it grieves my heart
    So soon from her to part:
    Death strike me with his dart!
      Phillada flouts me.

    Thou shalt eat crudded cream
      All the year lasting,

     guedes] goods, property of any kind.

    And drink the crystal stream
      Pleasant in tasting;
    Whig and whey whilst thou lust,
      And bramble-berries,
    Pie-lid and pastry-crust,
      Pears, plums, and cherries.
    Thy raiment shall be thin,
    Made of a weevil’s skin--
    Yet all’s not worth a pin!
      Phillada flouts me.

    In the last month of May
      I made her posies;
    I heard her often say
      That she loved roses.
    Cowslips and gillyflowers
      And the white lily
    I brought to deck the bowers
      For my sweet Philly.
    But she did all disdain,
    And threw them back again;
    Therefore ’tis flat and plain
      Phillada flouts me.

    Fair maiden, have a care,
      And in time take me;
    I can have those as fair
      If you forsake me:
    For Doll the dairy-maid
      Laugh’d at me lately,
    And wanton Winifred
      Favours me greatly.
    One throws milk on my clothes,
    T’other plays with my nose;
    What wanting signs are those?
      Phillada flouts me.

    I cannot work nor sleep
      At all in season:
    Love wounds my heart so deep
      Without all reason.
    I ’gin to pine away
      In my love’s shadow,
    Like as a fat beast may,
      Penn’d in a meadow.
    I shall be dead, I fear,
    Within this thousand year:
    And all for that my dear
      Phillada flouts me.




WILLIAM STRODE

1602-1645


_393._ _Chloris in the Snow_

    I saw fair Chloris walk alone,
    When feather’d rain came softly down,
    As Jove descending from his Tower
    To court her in a silver shower:
    The wanton snow flew to her breast,
    Like pretty birds into their nest,
    But, overcome with whiteness there,
    For grief it thaw’d into a tear:
      Thence falling on her garments’ hem,
      To deck her, froze into a gem.




THOMAS STANLEY

1625-1678


_394._ _The Relapse_

    Turn away those cruel eyes,
      The stars of my undoing!
    Or death, in such a bright disguise,
      May tempt a second wooing.

    Punish their blind and impious pride,
      Who dare contemn thy glory;
    It was my fall that deified
      Thy name, and seal’d thy story.

    Yet no new sufferings can prepare
      A higher praise to crown thee;
    Though my first death proclaim thee fair,
      My second will unthrone thee.

    Lovers will doubt thou canst entice
      No other for thy fuel,
    And if thou burn one victim twice,
      Both think thee poor and cruel.




THOMAS D’URFEY

1653-1723


_395._ _Chloe Divine_

    Chloe’s a Nymph in flowery groves,
      A Nereid in the streams;
    Saint-like she in the temple moves,
      A woman in my dreams.

    Love steals artillery from her eyes,
      The Graces point her charms;
    Orpheus is rivalled in her voice,
      And Venus in her arms.


    Never so happily in one
      Did heaven and earth combine:
    And yet ’tis flesh and blood alone
      That makes her so divine.




CHARLES COTTON

1630-1687


_396._ _To Cœlia_

    When, Cœlia, must my old day set,
      And my young morning rise
    In beams of joy so bright as yet
      Ne’er bless’d a lover’s eyes?
    My state is more advanced than when
      I first attempted thee:
    I sued to be a servant then,
      But now to be made free.

    I’ve served my time faithful and true,
      Expecting to be placed
    In happy freedom, as my due,
      To all the joys thou hast:
    Ill husbandry in love is such
      A scandal to love’s power,
    We ought not to misspend so much
      As one poor short-lived hour.

    Yet think not, sweet, I’m weary grown.
      That I pretend such haste;
    Since none to surfeit e’er was known
      Before he had a taste:
    My infant love could humbly wait
      When, young, it scarce knew how
    To plead; but grown to man’s estate,
      He is impatient now.




KATHERINE PHILIPS (‘ORINDA’)

1631-1664


_397._ _To One persuading a Lady to Marriage_

    Forbear, bold youth; all’s heaven here,
      And what you do aver
    To others courtship may appear,
      ’Tis sacrilege to her.
    She is a public deity;
      And were’t not very odd
    She should dispose herself to be
      A petty household god?

    First make the sun in private shine
      And bid the world adieu,
    That so he may his beams confine
      In compliment to you:
    But if of that you do despair,
      Think how you did amiss
    To strive to fix her beams which are
      More bright and large than his.




JOHN DRYDEN

1631-1700


_398._ _Ode_

     _To the Pious Memory of the accomplished young lady, Mrs. Anne
     Killigrew, excellent in the two sister arts of Poesy and Painting_

    Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
    Made in the last promotion of the blest;
    Whose palms, new pluck’d from Paradise,
    In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
        Rich with immortal green above the rest:
      Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
      Thou roll’st above us, in thy wandering race,
        Or, in procession fixt and regular,
        Mov’d with the heaven’s majestic pace;
        Or, called to more superior bliss,
      Thou tread’st with seraphims the vast abyss:
      Whatever happy region is thy place,
      Cease thy celestial song a little space;
      Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
        Since Heaven’s eternal year is thine.
      Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
                In no ignoble verse;
      But such as thy own voice did practise here,
      When thy first-fruits of Poesy were given,
      To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
        While yet a young probationer,
                And candidate of heaven.

        If by traduction came thy mind,
        Our wonder is the less, to find
      A soul so charming from a stock so good;
      Thy father was transfus’d into thy blood:
      So wert thou born into the tuneful strain,
      An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
        But if thy pre-existing soul
        Was form’d at first with myriads more,
      It did through all the mighty poets roll
        Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
    And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
        If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!
      Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
        Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,
      Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:
    Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind.

      May we presume to say, that, at thy birth,
    New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth?
      For sure the milder planets did combine
      On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,
      And even the most malicious were in trine.
        Thy brother-angels at thy birth
        Strung each his lyre, and tun’d it high,
        That all the people of the sky
      Might know a poetess was born on earth;
        And then, if ever, mortal ears
        Had heard the music of the spheres.
        And if no clust’ring swarm of bees
      On thy sweet mouth distill’d their golden dew,
        ’Twas that such vulgar miraclès
        Heaven had not leisure to renew:
      For all the blest fraternity of love
    Solemniz’d there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.

        O gracious God! how far have we
      Profan’d thy heavenly gift of Poesy!
      Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
      Debas’d to each obscene and impious use,
      Whose harmony was first ordain’d above,
      For tongues of angels and for hymns of love!
      O wretched we! why were we hurried down
        This lubrique and adulterate age
      (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own),
        To increase the streaming ordures of the stage?
      What can we say to excuse our second fall?
      Let this thy Vestal, Heaven, atone for all!
      Her Arethusian stream remains unsoil’d,
      Unmixt with foreign filth, and undefil’d;
    Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

        Art she had none, yet wanted none,
          For Nature did that want supply:
        So rich in treasures of her own,
          She might our boasted stores defy:
      Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,
      That it seem’d borrowed, where ’twas only born.
      Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,
        By great examples daily fed,
    What in the best of books, her father’s life, she read.
      And to be read herself she need not fear;
      Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear,
      Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
      Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest)
    Was but a lambent flame which play’d about her breast,
        Light as the vapours of a morning dream;
      So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,
        ’Twas Cupid bathing in Diana’s stream....

        Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
      The well-proportion’d shape, and beauteous face,
      Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
      In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
      Not wit, nor piety could fate prevent;
      Nor was the cruel destiny content
      To finish all the murder at a blow,
      To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
      But, like a hardened felon, took a pride
        To work more mischievously slow,
        And plunder’d first, and then destroyed.
      O double sacrilege on things divine,
      To rob the relic, and deface the shrine!
                But thus Orinda died:
      Heaven, by the same disease, did both translate;
    As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate.

      Meantime, her warlike brother on the seas
      His waving streamers to the winds displays,
    And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
         Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
         The winds too soon will waft thee here!
         Slack all thy sails, and fear to come,
      Alas, thou know’st not, thou art wreck’d at home!
      No more shalt thou behold thy sister’s face,
      Thou hast already had her last embrace.
      But look aloft, and if thou kenn’st from far,
      Among the Pleiads a new kindl’d star,
      If any sparkles than the rest more bright,
      ’Tis she that shines in that propitious light.

      When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
        To raise the nations under ground;
      When, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
      The judging God shall close the book of Fate,
        And there the last assizes keep
        For those who wake and those who sleep;
        When rattling bones together fly
      From the four corners of the sky;
      When sinews o’er the skeletons are spread,
      Those cloth’d with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
      The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,
        And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
      For they are cover’d with the lightest ground;
      And straight, with inborn vigour, on the wing,
    Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing.
    There thou, sweet Saint, before the quire shalt go,
    As harbinger of Heaven, the way to show,
    The way which thou so well hast learn’d below.


_399._ _A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1687_

    From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
          This universal frame began:
      When nature underneath a heap
          Of jarring atoms lay,
        And could 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 chorded shell,
      His listening brethren stood around,
        And, wondering, 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 thundering 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 O, 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 could lead the savage race;
      And trees unrooted left their place,
        Sequacious of the lyre;
    But bright Cecilia rais’d the wonder higher:
    When to her organ vocal breath was given,
      An angel heard, and straight appear’d
        Mistaking Earth for Heaven.


GRAND CHORUS.

    As from the power of sacred lays
      The spheres began to move,
    And sung the great Creator’s praise
      To all the Blest 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!


_400._ _Ah, how sweet it is to love!_

    Ah, how sweet it is to love!
      Ah, how gay is young Desire!
    And what pleasing pains we prove
      When we first approach Love’s fire!
    Pains of love be sweeter far
    Than all other pleasures are.

    Sighs which are from lovers blown
      Do but gently heave the heart:
    Ev’n the tears they shed alone
      Cure, like trickling balm, their smart:
    Lovers, when they lose their breath,
    Bleed away in easy death.

    Love and Time with reverence use,
      Treat them like a parting friend;
    Nor the golden gifts refuse
      Which in youth sincere they send:
    For each year their price is more,
    And they less simple than before.


    Love, like spring-tides full and high,
      Swells in every youthful vein;
    But each tide does less supply,
      Till they quite shrink in again:
    If a flow in age appear,
    ’Tis but rain, and runs not clear.


_401._ _Hidden Flame_

    I feed a flame within, which so torments me
    That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me:
    ’Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
    That I had rather die than once remove it.

    Yet he, for whom I grieve, shall never know it;
    My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes show it.
    Not a sigh, nor a tear, my pain discloses,
    But they fall silently, like dew on roses.

    Thus, to prevent my Love from being cruel,
    My heart’s the sacrifice, as ’tis the fuel;
    And while I suffer this to give him quiet,
    My faith rewards my love, though he deny it.

    On his eyes will I gaze, and there delight me;
    While I conceal my love no frown can fright me.
    To be more happy I dare not aspire,
    Nor can I fall more low, mounting no higher.


_402._ _Song to a Fair Young Lady, going out of the Town in the Spring_

    Ask not the cause why sullen Spring
      So long delays her flowers to bear;
    Why warbling birds forget to sing,
      And winter storms invert the year:
    Chloris is gone; and fate provides
    To make it Spring where she resides.

    Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
      She cast not back a pitying eye:
    But left her lover in despair
      To sigh, to languish, and to die:
    Ah! how can those fair eyes endure
    To give the wounds they will not cure?

    Great God of Love, why hast thou made
      A face that can all hearts command,
    That all religions can invade,
      And change the laws of every land?
    Where thou hadst plac’d such power before,
    Thou shouldst have made her mercy more.

    When Chloris to the temple comes,
      Adoring crowds before her fall;
    She can restore the dead from tombs
      And every life but mine recall.
    I only am by Love design’d
    To be the victim for mankind.




CHARLES WEBBE

c. 1678


_403._ _Against Indifference_

    More love or more disdain I crave,
      Sweet, be not still indifferent:
    O send me quickly to my grave,
      Or else afford me more content!
    Or love or hate me more or less,
    For love abhors all lukewarmness.

    Give me a tempest if ’twill drive
      Me to the place where I would be;
    Or if you’ll have me still alive,
      Confess you will be kind to me.
    Give hopes of bliss or dig my grave:
    More love or more disdain I crave.




SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE

1635-1691


_404._ _Song_

    Ladies, though to your conquering eyes
    Love owes his chiefest victories,
    And borrows those bright arms from you
    With which he does the world subdue,
    Yet you yourselves are not above
    The empire nor the griefs of love.

    Then rack not lovers with disdain,
    Lest Love on you revenge their pain:
    You are not free because you’re fair:
    The Boy did not his Mother spare.
    Beauty’s but an offensive dart:
    It is no armour for the heart.


_405._ _To a Lady asking him how long he would love her_

    It is not, Celia, in our power
      To say how long our love will last;
    It may be we within this hour
      May lose those joys we now do taste;
    The Blessèd, that immortal be,
    From change in love are only free.

    Then since we mortal lovers are,
      Ask not how long our love will last;
    But while it does, let us take care
      Each minute be with pleasure past:
    Were it not madness to deny
    To live because we’re sure to die?




THOMAS TRAHERNE

1637?-1674


_406._ _News_

        News from a foreign country came
            As if my treasure and my wealth lay there;
        So much it did my heart inflame,
    ’Twas wont to call my Soul into mine ear;
            Which thither went to meet
                The approaching sweet,
            And on the threshold stood
        To entertain the unknown Good.
                It hover’d there
            As if ’twould leave mine ear,
        And was so eager to embrace
          The joyful tidings as they came,
        ’Twould almost leave its dwelling-place
            To entertain that same.

        As if the tidings were the things,
    My very joys themselves, my foreign treasure--
        Or else did bear them on their wings--
    With so much joy they came, with so much pleasure.
            My Soul stood at that gate
                To recreate
            Itself with bliss, and to
        Be pleased with speed. A fuller view
                It fain would take,
            Yet journeys back would make
        Unto my heart; as if ’twould fain
          Go out to meet, yet stay within
        To fit a place to entertain
            And bring the tidings in.

        What sacred instinct did inspire
    My soul in childhood with a hope so strong?
        What secret force moved my desire
    To expect my joys beyond the seas, so young?
            Felicity I knew
                Was out of view,
            And being here alone,
        I saw that happiness was gone
                From me! For this
            I thirsted absent bliss,
        And thought that sure beyond the seas,
          Or else in something near at hand--
        I knew not yet--since naught did please
            I knew--my Bliss did stand.


        But little did the infant dream
    That all the treasures of the world were by:
        And that himself was so the cream
    And crown of all which round about did lie.
            Yet thus it was: the Gem,
                The Diadem,
            The ring enclosing all
        That stood upon this earthly ball,
                The Heavenly eye,
            Much wider than the sky,
        Wherein they all included were,
          The glorious Soul, that was the King
        Made to possess them, did appear
            A small and little thing!




THOMAS FLATMAN

1637-1688


_407._ _The Sad Day_

    O the sad day!
    When friends shall shake their heads, and say
    Of miserable me--
    ‘Hark, how he groans!
    Look, how he pants for breath!
    See how he struggles with the pangs of death!’
    When they shall say of these dear eyes--
    ‘How hollow, O how dim they be!
    Mark how his breast doth rise and swell
    Against his potent enemy!’
    When some old friend shall step to my bedside,
    Touch my chill face, and thence shall gently slide.
    But--when his next companions say
    ‘How does he do? What hopes?’--shall turn away,
    Answering only, with a lift-up hand--
    ‘Who can his fate withstand?’

    Then shall a gasp or two do more
    Than e’er my rhetoric could before:
    Persuade the world to trouble me no more!




CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET

1638-1706


_408._ _Song_

_Written at Sea, in the First Dutch War (1665), the night before an
Engagement._

    To all you ladies now at land
      We men at sea indite;
    But first would have you understand
      How hard it is to write:
    The Muses now, and Neptune too,
    We must implore to write to you--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    For though the Muses should prove kind,
      And fill our empty brain,
    Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind
      To wave the azure main,
    Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
    Roll up and down our ships at sea--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.


    Then if we write not by each post,
      Think not we are unkind;
    Nor yet conclude our ships are lost
      By Dutchmen or by wind:
    Our tears we’ll send a speedier way,
    The tide shall bring them twice a day--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    The King with wonder and surprise
      Will swear the seas grow bold,
    Because the tides will higher rise
      Than e’er they did of old:
    But let him know it is our tears
    Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    Should foggy Opdam chance to know
      Our sad and dismal story,
    The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,
      And quit their fort at Goree:
    For what resistance can they find
    From men who’ve left their hearts behind?--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    Let wind and weather do its worst,
      Be you to us but kind;
    Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,
      No sorrow we shall find:
    ’Tis then no matter how things go,
    Or who’s our friend, or who’s our foe--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    To pass our tedious hours away
      We throw a merry main,
    Or else at serious ombre play;
      But why should we in vain
    Each other’s ruin thus pursue?
    We were undone when we left you--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    But now our fears tempestuous grow
      And cast our hopes away;
    Whilst you, regardless of our woe,
      Sit careless at a play:
    Perhaps permit some happier man
    To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    When any mournful tune you hear,
      That dies in every note
    As if it sigh’d with each man’s care
      For being so remote,
    Think then how often love we’ve made
    To you, when all those tunes were play’d--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    In justice you cannot refuse
      To think of our distress,
    When we for hopes of honour lose
      Our certain happiness:
    All those designs are but to prove
    Ourselves more worthy of your love--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.

    And now we’ve told you all our loves,
      And likewise all our fears,
    In hopes this declaration moves
      Some pity for our tears:
    Let’s hear of no inconstancy--
    We have too much of that at sea--
        With a fa, la, la, la, la.




SIR CHARLES SEDLEY

1639-1701


_409._ _To Chloris_

    Ah, Chloris! that I now could sit
      As unconcern’d as when
    Your infant beauty could beget
      No pleasure, nor no pain!
    When I the dawn used to admire,
      And praised the coming day,
    I little thought the growing fire
      Must take my rest away.

    Your charms in harmless childhood lay
      Like metals in the mine;
    Age from no face took more away
      Than youth conceal’d in thine.
    But as your charms insensibly
      To their perfection prest,
    Fond love as unperceived did fly,
      And in my bosom rest.

    My passion with your beauty grew,
      And Cupid at my heart,
    Still as his mother favour’d you,
      Threw a new flaming dart:
    Each gloried in their wanton part;
      To make a lover, he
    Employ’d the utmost of his art--
      To make a beauty, she.


_410._ _To Celia_

    Not, Celia, that I juster am
      Or better than the rest!
    For I would change each hour, like them,
      Were not my heart at rest.


    But I am tied to very thee
      By every thought I have;
    Thy face I only care to see,
      Thy heart I only crave.

    All that in woman is adored
      In thy dear self I find--
    For the whole sex can but afford
      The handsome and the kind.

    Why then should I seek further store,
      And still make love anew?
    When change itself can give no more,
      ’Tis easy to be true!




APHRA BEHN

1640-1689


_411._ _Song_

    Love in fantastic triumph sate
      Whilst bleeding hearts around him flow’d,
    For whom fresh pains he did create
      And strange tyrannic power he show’d:
    From thy bright eyes he took his fires,
      Which round about in sport he hurl’d;
    But ’twas from mine he took desires
      Enough t’ undo the amorous world.

    From me he took his sighs and tears,
      From thee his pride and cruelty;
    From me his languishments and fears,
      And every killing dart from thee.
    Thus thou and I the god have arm’d
      And set him up a deity;
    But my poor heart alone is harm’d,
      Whilst thine the victor is, and free!


_412._ _The Libertine_

    A thousand martyrs I have made,
      All sacrificed to my desire,
    A thousand beauties have betray’d
      That languish in resistless fire:
    The untamed heart to hand I brought,
    And fix’d the wild and wand’ring thought.

    I never vow’d nor sigh’d in vain,
      But both, tho’ false, were well received;
    The fair are pleased to give us pain,
      And what they wish is soon believed:
    And tho’ I talk’d of wounds and smart,
    Love’s pleasures only touch’d my heart.

    Alone the glory and the spoil
      I always laughing bore away;
    The triumphs without pain or toil,
      Without the hell the heaven of joy;
    And while I thus at random rove
    Despise the fools that whine for love.




JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER

1647-1680


_413._ _Return_

    Absent from thee, I languish still;
      Then ask me not, When I return?
    The straying fool ’twill plainly kill
      To wish all day, all night to mourn.


    Dear, from thine arms then let me fly,
      That my fantastic mind may prove
    The torments it deserves to try,
      That tears my fix’d heart from my love.

    When, wearied with a world of woe,
      To thy safe bosom I retire,
    Where love, and peace, and truth does flow,
      May I contented there expire!

    Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,
      I fall on some base heart unblest;
    Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven--
      And lose my everlasting rest.


_414._ _Love and Life_

    All my past life is mine no more;
      The flying hours are gone,
    Like transitory dreams given o’er,
    Whose images are kept in store
      By memory alone.

    The time that is to come is not;
      How can it then be mine?
    The present moment’s all my lot;
    And that, as fast as it is got,
      Phillis, is only thine.

    Then talk not of inconstancy.
      False hearts, and broken vows;
    If I by miracle can be
    This live-long minute true to thee,
      ’Tis all that Heaven allows.


_415._ _Constancy_

    I cannot change as others do,
      Though you unjustly scorn;
    Since that poor swain that sighs for you
      For you alone was born.
    No, Phillis, no; your heart to move
      A surer way I’ll try;
    And, to revenge my slighted love,
      Will still love on and die.

    When kill’d with grief Amyntas lies,
      And you to mind shall call
    The sighs that now unpitied rise,
      The tears that vainly fall--
    That welcome hour, that ends this smart,
      Will then begin your pain;
    For such a faithful tender heart
      Can never break in vain.


_416._ _To His Mistress_

(_After Quarles_)

    Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
    Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
    The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye?

    Without thy light what light remains in me?
    Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee;
    I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.

    Thou art my life--if thou but turn away
    My life’s a thousand deaths. Thou art my way--
    Without thee, Love, I travel not but stray.


    My light thou art--without thy glorious sight
    My eyes are darken’d with eternal night.
    My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.

    Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly.
    Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I!
    Thou art my life; if thou withdraw’st, I die.

    My eyes are dark and blind, I cannot see:
    To whom or whither should my darkness flee,
    But to that light?--and who’s that light but thee?

    If I have lost my path, dear lover, say,
    Shall I still wander in a doubtful way?
    Love, shall a lamb of Israel’s sheepfold stray?

    My path is lost, my wandering steps do stray;
    I cannot go, nor can I safely stay;
    Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way?

    And yet thou turn’st thy face away and fly’st me!
    And yet I sue for grace and thou deny’st me!
    Speak, art thou angry, Love, or only try’st me?

    Thou art the pilgrim’s path, the blind man’s eye,
    The dead man’s life. On thee my hopes rely:
    If I but them remove, I surely die.

    Dissolve thy sunbeams, close thy wings and stay!
    See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray!
    --O thou that art my life, my light, my way!

    Then work thy will! If passion bid me flee,
    My reason shall obey, my wings shall be
    Stretch’d out no farther than from me to thee!




JOHN SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

1649-1720


_417._ _The Reconcilement_

    Come, let us now resolve at last
      To live and love in quiet;
    We’ll tie the knot so very fast
      That Time shall ne’er untie it.

    The truest joys they seldom prove
      Who free from quarrels live:
    ’Tis the most tender part of love
      Each other to forgive.

    When least I seem’d concern’d, I took
      No pleasure nor no rest;
    And when I feign’d an angry look,
      Alas! I loved you best.

    Own but the same to me--you’ll find
      How blest will be our fate.
    O to be happy--to be kind--
      Sure never is too late!


_418._ _On One who died discovering her Kindness_

    Some vex their souls with jealous pain,
    While others sigh for cold disdain:
    Love’s various slaves we daily see--
    Yet happy all compared with me!


    Of all mankind I loved the best
    A nymph so far above the rest
    That we outshined the Blest above;
    In beauty she, as I in love.

    And therefore They, who could not bear
    To be outdone by mortals here,
    Among themselves have placed her now,
    And left me wretched here below.

    All other fate I could have borne,
    And even endured her very scorn;
    But oh! thus all at once to find
    That dread account--both dead and kind!
    What heart can hold? If yet I live,
    ’Tis but to show how much I grieve.




THOMAS OTWAY

1652-1685


_419._ _The Enchantment_

    I did but look and love awhile,
      ’Twas but for one half-hour;
    Then to resist I had no will,
      And now I have no power.

    To sigh and wish is all my ease;
      Sighs which do heat impart
    Enough to melt the coldest ice,
      Yet cannot warm your heart.

    O would your pity give my heart
      One corner of your breast,
    ’Twould learn of yours the winning art,
      And quickly steal the rest.




JOHN OLDHAM

1653-1683


_420._ _A Quiet Soul_

    Thy soul within such silent pomp did keep,
      As if humanity were lull’d asleep;
    So gentle was thy pilgrimage beneath,
      Time’s unheard feet scarce make less noise,
      Or the soft journey which a planet goes:
    Life seem’d all calm as its last breath.
      A still tranquillity so hush’d thy breast,
        As if some Halcyon were its guest,
        And there had built her nest;
      It hardly now enjoys a greater rest.




JOHN CUTTS, LORD CUTTS

1661-1707


_421._ _Song_

    Only tell her that I love:
      Leave the rest to her and Fate:
    Some kind planet from above
    May perhaps her pity move:
      Lovers on their stars must wait.--
    Only tell her that I love!

    Why, O why should I despair!
      Mercy’s pictured in her eye:
    If she once vouchsafe to hear,
    Welcome Hope and farewell Fear!
      She’s too good to let me die.--
    Why, O why should I despair?




MATTHEW PRIOR

1664-1721


_422._ _The Question to Lisetta_

    What nymph should I admire or trust,
    But Chloe beauteous, Chloe just?
    What nymph should I desire to see,
    But her who leaves the plain for me?
    To whom should I compose the lay,
    But her who listens when I play?
    To whom in song repeat my cares,
    But her who in my sorrow shares?
    For whom should I the garland make,
    But her who joys the gift to take,
    And boasts she wears it for my sake?
    In love am I not fully blest?
    Lisetta, prithee tell the rest.


LISETTA’S REPLY

    Sure Chloe just, and Chloe fair,
    Deserves to be your only care;
    But, when you and she to-day
    Far into the wood did stray,
    And I happened to pass by,
    Which way did you cast your eye?
    But, when your cares to her you sing,
    You dare not tell her whence they spring;
    Does it not more afflict your heart,
    That in those cares she bears a part?
    When you the flowers for Chloe twine,
    Why do you to her garland join
    The meanest bud that falls from mine?
    Simplest of swains! the world may see
    Whom Chloe loves, and who loves me.


_423._ _To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then
Forty_

    Lords, knights, and squires, the numerous band
      That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters,
    Were summoned by her high command
      To show their passions by their letters.

    My pen amongst the rest I took,
      Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read,
    Should dart their kindling fire, and look
      The power they have to be obey’d.

    Nor quality, nor reputation,
      Forbid me yet my flame to tell;
    Dear Five-years-old befriends my passion,
      And I may write till she can spell.

    For, while she makes her silkworms beds
      With all the tender things I swear;
    Whilst all the house my passion reads,
      In papers round her baby’s hair;

    She may receive and own my flame;
      For, though the strictest prudes should know it,
    She’ll pass for a most virtuous dame,
      And I for an unhappy poet.

    Then too, alas! when she shall tear
      The rhymes some younger rival sends,
    She’ll give me leave to write, I fear,
      And we shall still continue friends.

    For, as our different ages move,
      ’Tis so ordain’d (would Fate but mend it!),
    That I shall be past making love
      When she begins to comprehend it.


_424._ _Song_

    The merchant, to secure his treasure,
      Conveys it in a borrow’d name:
    Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
      But Chloe is my real flame.

    My softest verse, my darling lyre,
      Upon Euphelia’s toilet lay;
    When Chloe noted her desire
      That I should sing, that I should play.

    My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;
      But with my numbers mix my sighs:
    And while I sing Euphelia’s praise,
      I fix my soul on Chloe’s eyes.

    Fair Chloe blush’d: Euphelia frown’d:
      I sung, and gazed: I play’d, and trembled:
    And Venus to the Loves around
      Remark’d, how ill we all dissembled.


_425._ _On My Birthday, July 21_

    I, my dear, was born to-day--
    So all my jolly comrades say:
    They bring me music, wreaths, and mirth,
    And ask to celebrate my birth:
    Little, alas! my comrades know
    That I was born to pain and woe;
    To thy denial, to thy scorn,
    Better I had ne’er been born:
    I wish to die, even whilst I say--
    ‘I, my dear, was born to-day.’


    I, my dear, was born to-day:
    Shall I salute the rising ray,
    Well-spring of all my joy and woe?
    Clotilda, thou alone dost know.
    Shall the wreath surround my hair?
    Or shall the music please my ear?
    Shall I my comrades’ mirth receive,
    And bless my birth, and wish to live?
    Then let me see great Venus chase
    Imperious anger from thy face;
    Then let me hear thee smiling say--
    ‘Thou, my dear, wert born to-day.’


_426._ _The Lady who offers her Looking-Glass to Venus_

    Venus, take my votive glass:
    Since I am not what I was,
    What from this day I shall be,
    Venus, let me never see.


_427._ _A Letter_

_to Lady Margaret Cavendish Holles-Harley, when a Child_

    My noble, lovely, little Peggy,
    Let this my First Epistle beg ye,
    At dawn of morn, and close of even,
    To lift your heart and hands to Heaven.
    In double duty say your prayer:
    _Our Father_ first, then _Notre Père_.


    And, dearest child, along the day,
    In every thing you do and say,
    Obey and please my lord and lady,
    So God shall love and angels aid ye.

    If to these precepts you attend,
    No second letter need I send,
    And so I rest your constant friend.


_428._ _For my own Monument_

    As doctors give physic by way of prevention,
      Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care;
    For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention
      May haply be never fulfill’d by his heir.

    Then take Mat’s word for it, the sculptor is paid;
      That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye;
    Yet credit but lightly what more may be said,
      For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie.

    Yet counting as far as to fifty his years,
      His virtues and vices were as other men’s are;
    High hopes he conceived, and he smother’d great fears,
      In a life parti-colour’d, half pleasure, half care.

    Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,
      He strove to make interest and freedom agree;
    In public employments industrious and grave,
      And alone with his friends, Lord! how merry was he!

    Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot,
      Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust;
    And whirl’d in the round as the wheel turn’d about,
      He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust.


    This verse, little polish’d, tho’ mighty sincere,
      Sets neither his titles nor merit to view;
    It says that his relics collected lie here,
      And no mortal yet knows too if this may be true.

    Fierce robbers there are that infest the highway,
      So Mat may be kill’d, and his bones never found;
    False witness at court, and fierce tempests at sea,
      So Mat may yet chance to be hang’d or be drown’d.

    If his bones lie in earth, roll in sea, fly in air,
      To Fate we must yield, and the thing is the same;
    And if passing thou giv’st him a smile or a tear,
      He cares not--yet, prithee, be kind to his fame.




WILLIAM WALSH

1663-1708


_429._ _Rivals_

    Of all the torments, all the cares,
      With which our lives are curst;
    Of all the plagues a lover bears,
      Sure rivals are the worst!
    By partners in each other kind
      Afflictions easier grow;
    In love alone we hate to find
      Companions of our woe.

    Sylvia, for all the pangs you see
      Are labouring in my breast,
    I beg not you would favour me,
      Would you but slight the rest!
    How great soe’er your rigours are,
      With them alone I’ll cope;
    I can endure my own despair,
      But not another’s hope.




LADY GRISEL BAILLIE

1665-1746


_430._ _Werena my Hearts licht I wad dee_

    There ance was a may, and she lo’ed na men;
    She biggit her bonnie bow’r doun in yon glen;
    But now she cries, Dool and a well-a-day!
    Come doun the green gait and come here away!

    When bonnie young Johnnie cam owre the sea,
    He said he saw naething sae lovely as me;
    He hecht me baith rings and mony braw things--
    And werena my heart’s licht, I wad dee.

    He had a wee titty that lo’ed na me,
    Because I was twice as bonnie as she;
    She raised sic a pother ’twixt him and his mother
    That werena my heart’s licht, I wad dee.

    The day it was set, and the bridal to be:
    The wife took a dwam and lay doun to dee;
    She maned and she graned out o’ dolour and pain,
    Till he vow’d he never wad see me again.

    His kin was for ane of a higher degree,
    Said--What had he do wi’ the likes of me?
    Appose I was bonnie, I wasna for Johnnie--
    And werena my heart’s licht, I wad dee.

    They said I had neither cow nor calf,
    Nor dribbles o’ drink rins thro’ the draff,
    Nor pickles o’ meal rins thro’ the mill-e’e--
    And werena my heart’s licht, I wad dee.

     may] maid. biggit] built. gait] way, path. hecht] promised. titty]
     sister. dwam] sudden illness. appose] suppose. pickles] small
     quantities.

    His titty she was baith wylie and slee:
    She spied me as I cam owre the lea;
    And then she ran in and made a loud din--
    Believe your ain e’en, an ye trow not me.

    His bonnet stood ay fu’ round on his brow,
    His auld ane look’d ay as well as some’s new:
    But now he lets ’t wear ony gait it will hing,
    And casts himsel dowie upon the corn bing.

    And now he gaes daund’ring about the dykes,
    And a’ he dow do is to hund the tykes:
    The live-lang nicht he ne’er steeks his e’e--
    And werena my heart’s licht, I wad dee.

    Were I but young for thee, as I hae been,
    We should hae been gallopin’ doun in yon green,
    And linkin’ it owre the lily-white lea--
    And wow, gin I were but young for thee!

     _430._ hing] hang. dowie] dejectedly. hund the tykes] direct the
     dogs. steeks] closes. linkin’] tripping.




WILLIAM CONGREVE

1670-1729.


_431._ _False though She be_

    False though she be to me and love,
      I’ll ne’er pursue revenge;
    For still the charmer I approve,
      Though I deplore her change.

    In hours of bliss we oft have met:
      They could not always last;
    And though the present I regret,
      I’m grateful for the past.


_432._ _A Hue and Cry after Fair Amoret_

    Fair Amoret is gone astray--
      Pursue and seek her, ev’ry lover;
    I’ll tell the signs by which you may
      The wand’ring Shepherdess discover.

    Coquette and coy at once her air,
      Both studied, tho’ both seem neglected;
    Careless she is, with artful care,
      Affecting to seem unaffected.

    With skill her eyes dart ev’ry glance,
      Yet change so soon you’d ne’er suspect them,
    For she’d persuade they wound by chance,
      Tho’ certain aim and art direct them.

    She likes herself, yet others hates
      For that which in herself she prizes;
    And, while she laughs at them, forgets
      She is the thing that she despises.




JOSEPH ADDISON

1672-1719


_433._ _Hymn_

    The spacious firmament on high,
    With all the blue ethereal sky,
    And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
    Their great Original proclaim.
    Th’ unwearied Sun from day to day
    Does his Creator’s power display;
    And publishes to every land
    The work of an Almighty hand.


    Soon as the evening shades prevail,
    The Moon takes up the wondrous tale;
    And nightly to the listening Earth
    Repeats the story of her birth:
    Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
    And all the planets in their turn,
    Confirm the tidings as they roll,
    And spread the truth from pole to pole.

    What though in solemn silence all
    Move round the dark terrestrial ball;
    What though nor real voice nor sound
    Amidst their radiant orbs be found?
    In Reason’s ear they all rejoice,
    And utter forth a glorious voice;
    For ever singing as they shine,
    ‘The Hand that made us is divine.’




ISAAC WATTS

1674-1748


_434._ _The Day of Judgement_

    When the fierce North-wind with his airy forces
    Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury;
    And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes
                        Rushing amain down;

    How the poor sailors stand amazed and tremble,
    While the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet,
    Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters
                        Quick to devour them.


    Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder
    (If things eternal may be like these earthly),
    Such the dire terror when the great Archangel
                        Shakes the creation;

    Tears the strong pillars of the vault of Heaven,
    Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes,
    Sees the graves open, and the bones arising,
                        Flames all around them.

    Hark, the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches!
    Lively bright horror and amazing anguish
    Stare thro’ their eyelids, while the living worm lies
                        Gnawing within them.

    Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heart-strings,
    And the smart twinges, when the eye beholds the
    Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance
                        Rolling afore him.

    Hopeless immortals! how they scream and shiver,
    While devils push them to the pit wide-yawning
    Hideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong
                        Down to the centre!

    Stop here, my fancy: (all away, ye horrid
    Doleful ideas!) come, arise to Jesus,
    How He sits God-like! and the saints around Him
                        Throned, yet adoring!

    O may I sit there when He comes triumphant,
    Dooming the nations! then ascend to glory,
    While our Hosannas all along the passage
                        Shout the Redeemer.


_435._ _A Cradle Hymn_

    Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber,
      Holy angels guard thy bed!
    Heavenly blessings without number
      Gently falling on thy head.

    Sleep, my babe; thy food and raiment,
      House and home, thy friends provide;
    All without thy care or payment:
      All thy wants are well supplied.

    How much better thou’rt attended
      Than the Son of God could be,
    When from heaven He descended
      And became a child like thee!

    Soft and easy is thy cradle:
      Coarse and hard thy Saviour lay,
    When His birthplace was a stable
      And His softest bed was hay.

    Blessèd babe! what glorious features--
      Spotless fair, divinely bright!
    Must He dwell with brutal creatures?
      How could angels bear the sight?

    Was there nothing but a manger
      Cursèd sinners could afford
    To receive the heavenly stranger?
      Did they thus affront their Lord?


    Soft, my child: I did not chide thee,
      Though my song might sound too hard;
    ’Tis thy mother sits beside thee,
      And her arms shall be thy guard.

    Yet to read the shameful story
      How the Jews abused their King,
    How they served the Lord of Glory,
      Makes me angry while I sing.

    See the kinder shepherds round Him,
      Telling wonders from the sky!
    Where they sought Him, there they found Him,
      With His Virgin mother by.

    See the lovely babe a-dressing;
      Lovely infant, how He smiled!
    When He wept, the mother’s blessing
      Soothed and hush’d the holy child.

    Lo, He slumbers in His manger,
      Where the hornèd oxen fed:
    Peace, my darling; here’s no danger,
      Here’s no ox anear thy bed.

    ’Twas to save thee, child, from dying,
      Save my dear from burning flame,
    Bitter groans and endless crying,
      That thy blest Redeemer came.

    May’st thou live to know and fear Him,
      Trust and love Him all thy days;
    Then go dwell for ever near Him,
      See His face, and sing His praise!




THOMAS PARNELL

1679-1718


_436._ _Song_

        When thy beauty appears
        In its graces and airs
    All bright as an angel new dropp’d from the sky,
    At distance I gaze and am awed by my fears:
        So strangely you dazzle my eye!

        But when without art
        Your kind thoughts you impart,
    When your love runs in blushes through every vein;
    When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in your heart,
        Then I know you’re a woman again.

        There’s a passion and pride
        In our sex (she replied),
    And thus, might I gratify both, I would do:
    Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
        But still be a woman to you.




ALLAN RAMSAY

1686-1758


_437._ _Peggy_

      My Peggy is a young thing,
        Just enter’d in her teens,
    Fair as the day, and sweet as May,
    Fair as the day, and always gay;
      My Peggy is a young thing,
        And I’m not very auld,
      Yet well I like to meet her at
        The wawking of the fauld.

      My Peggy speaks sae sweetly
        Whene’er we meet alane,
    I wish nae mair to lay my care,
    I wish nae mair of a’ that’s rare;
      My Peggy speaks sae sweetly,
        To a’ the lave I’m cauld,
      But she gars a’ my spirits glow
        At wawking of the fauld.

      My Peggy smiles sae kindly
        Whene’er I whisper love,
    That I look down on a’ the town,
    That I look down upon a crown;
      My Peggy smiles sae kindly,
        It makes me blyth and bauld,
      And naething gi’es me sic delight
        As wawking of the fauld.

      My Peggy sings sae saftly
        When on my pipe I play,
    By a’ the rest it is confest,
    By a’ the rest, that she sings best;
      My Peggy sings sae saftly,
        And in her sangs are tauld
      With innocence the wale of sense,
        At wawking of the fauld.

     wawking] watching. lave] rest. wale] choice, best.




WILLIAM OLDYS

1687-1761


_438._ _On a Fly drinking out of his Cup_

    Busy, curious, thirsty fly!
    Drink with me and drink as I:
    Freely welcome to my cup,
    Couldst thou sip and sip it up:
    Make the most of life you may,
    Life is short and wears away.

    Both alike are mine and thine
    Hastening quick to their decline:
    Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more,
    Though repeated to threescore.
    Threescore summers, when they’re gone,
    Will appear as short as one!




JOHN GAY

1688-1732


_439._ _Song_

    O ruddier than the cherry!
    O sweeter than the berry!
        O nymph more bright
        Than moonshine night,
    Like kidlings blithe and merry!
    Ripe as the melting cluster!
    No lily has such lustre;
        Yet hard to tame
        As raging flame,
    And fierce as storms that bluster!




ALEXANDER POPE

1688-1744


_440._ _On a certain Lady at Court_

    I know a thing that’s most uncommon;
      (Envy, be silent and attend!)
    I know a reasonable woman,
      Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

    Not warp’d by passion, awed by rumour;
      Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly;
    An equal mixture of good-humour
      And sensible soft melancholy.

    ‘Has she no faults then (Envy says), Sir?’
      Yes, she has one, I must aver:
    When all the world conspires to praise her,
      The woman’s deaf, and does not hear.


_441._ _Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady_

    What beck’ning ghost, along the moonlight shade
    Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
    ’Tis she!--but why that bleeding bosom gored,
    Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
    O, ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
    Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well?
    To bear too tender or too firm a heart,
    To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?
    Is there no bright reversion in the sky
    For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
      Why bade ye else, ye Pow’rs! her soul aspire
    Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
    Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
    The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
    Thence to their images on earth it flows,
    And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
    Most souls, ’tis true, but peep out once an age,
    Dull sullen pris’ners in the body’s cage:
    Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years,
    Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
    Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
    And close confined to their own palace, sleep.
      From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die)
    Fate snatch’d her early to the pitying sky.
    As into air the purer spirits flow,
    And sep’rate from their kindred dregs below,
    So flew the soul to its congenial place,
    Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
      But thou, false guardian of a charge too good!
    Thou, mean deserter of thy brother’s blood!
    See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
    These cheeks now fading at the blast of Death:
    Cold is that breast which warm’d the world before,
    And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
    Thus, if eternal Justice rules the ball,
    Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
    On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
    And frequent herses shall besiege your gates.
    There passengers shall stand, and pointing say
    (While the long fun’rals blacken all the way),
    ‘Lo! these were they whose souls the Furies steel’d
    And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.’
    Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
    The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
    So perish all whose breast ne’er learn’d to glow
    For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe!
      What can atone (O ever-injured shade!)
    Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?
    No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear
    Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier.
    By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
    By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
    By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d,
    By strangers honour’d, and by strangers mourn’d!
    What tho’ no friends in sable weeds appear,
    Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
    And bear about the mockery of woe
    To midnight dances, and the public show?
    What tho’ no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
    Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face?
    What tho’ no sacred earth allow thee room,
    Nor hallow’d dirge be mutter’d o’er thy tomb?
    Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be drest,
    And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
    There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
    There the first roses of the year shall blow;
    While angels with their silver wings o’ershade
    The ground now sacred by thy reliques made.
      So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
    What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
    How loved, how honour’d once, avails thee not,
    To whom related, or by whom begot;
    A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
    ’Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
      Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
    Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
    Ev’n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
    Shall shortly want the gen’rous tear he pays;
    Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
    And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;
    Life’s idle business at one gasp be o’er,
    The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more!


_442._ _The Dying Christian to his Soul_

      Vital spark of heav’nly flame!
      Quit, O quit this mortal frame:
      Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
      O the pain, the bliss of dying!
    Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
    And let me languish into life.

      Hark! they whisper; angels say,
      Sister Spirit, come away!
      What is this absorbs me quite?
      Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
    Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
    Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

    The world recedes; it disappears!
    Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears
      With sounds seraphic ring!
    Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
    O Grave! where is thy victory?
      O Death! where is thy sting?




GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON, LORD MELCOMBE

1691?-1762


_443._ _Shorten Sail_

    Love thy country, wish it well,
      Not with too intense a care;
    ’Tis enough that, when it fell,
      Thou its ruin didst not share.

    Envy’s censure, Flattery’s praise,
      With unmoved indifference view:
    Learn to tread Life’s dangerous maze
      With unerring Virtue’s clue.

    Void of strong desire and fear,
      Life’s wide ocean trust no more;
    Strive thy little bark to steer
      With the tide, but near the shore.

    Thus prepared, thy shorten’d sail
      Shall, whene’er the winds increase,
    Seizing each propitious gale,
      Waft thee to the port of Peace.

    Keep thy conscience from offence
      And tempestuous passions free,
    So, when thou art call’d from hence,
      Easy shall thy passage be.

    --Easy shall thy passage be,
      Cheerful thy allotted stay,
    Short the account ’twixt God and thee,
      Hope shall meet thee on thy way.




HENRY CAREY

1693?-1743


_444._ _Sally in our Alley_

    Of all the girls that are so smart
      There’s none like pretty Sally;
    She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.
    There is no lady in the land
      Is half so sweet as Sally;
    She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

    Her father he makes cabbage-nets,
      And through the streets does cry ’em;
    Her mother she sells laces long
      To such as please to buy ’em:
    But sure such folks could ne’er beget
      So sweet a girl as Sally!
    She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

    When she is by, I leave my work,
      I love her so sincerely;
    My master comes like any Turk,
      And bangs me most severely:
    But let him bang his bellyful,
      I’ll bear it all for Sally;
    She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

    Of all the days that’s in the week
      I dearly love but one day--
    And that’s the day that comes betwixt
      A Saturday and Monday;
    For then I’m drest all in my best
      To walk abroad with Sally;
    She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

    My master carries me to church,
      And often am I blamèd
    Because I leave him in the lurch
      As soon as text is namèd;
    I leave the church in sermon-time
      And slink away to Sally;
    She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

    When Christmas comes about again,
      O, then I shall have money;
    I’ll hoard it up, and box it all,
      I’ll give it to my honey:
    I would it were ten thousand pound,
      I’d give it all to Sally;
    She is the darling of my heart,
      And she lives in our alley.

    My master and the neighbours all
      Make game of me and Sally,
    And, but for her, I’d better be
      A slave and row a galley;
    But when my seven long years are out,
      O, then I’ll marry Sally;
    O, then we’ll wed, and then we’ll bed--
      But not in our alley!


_445._ _A Drinking-Song_

    Bacchus must now his power resign--
    I am the only God of Wine!
    It is not fit the wretch should be
    In competition set with me,
    Who can drink ten times more than he.

    Make a new world, ye powers divine!
    Stock’d with nothing else but Wine:
    Let Wine its only product be,
    Let Wine be earth, and air, and sea--
    And let that Wine be all for me!




WILLIAM BROOME

?-1745


_446._ _The Rosebud_

    Queen of fragrance, lovely Rose,
    The beauties of thy leaves disclose!
    --But thou, fair Nymph, thyself survey
    In this sweet offspring of a day.
    That miracle of face must fail,
    Thy charms are sweet, but charms are frail:
    Swift as the short-lived flower they fly,
    At morn they bloom, at evening die:
    Though Sickness yet a while forbears,
    Yet Time destroys what Sickness spares:
    Now Helen lives alone in fame,
    And Cleopatra’s but a name:
    Time must indent that heavenly brow,
    And thou must be what they are now.


_447._ _Belinda’s Recovery from Sickness_

    Thus when the silent grave becomes
    Pregnant with life as fruitful wombs;
    When the wide seas and spacious earth
      Resign us to our second birth;
    Our moulder’d frame rebuilt assumes
    New beauty, and for ever blooms,
    And, crown’d with youth’s immortal pride,
      We angels rise, who mortals died.




JAMES THOMSON

1700-1748


_448._ _On the Death of a particular Friend_

    As those we love decay, we die in part,
    String after string is sever’d from the heart;
    Till loosen’d life, at last but breathing clay,
    Without one pang is glad to fall away.

    Unhappy he who latest feels the blow!
    Whose eyes have wept o’er every friend laid low,
    Dragg’d ling’ring on from partial death to death,
    Till, dying, all he can resign is--breath.




GEORGE LYTTELTON, LORD LYTTELTON

1709-1773


_449._ _Tell me, my Heart if this be Love_

    When Delia on the plain appears,
    Awed by a thousand tender fears
    I would approach, but dare not move:
    Tell me, my heart, if this be love?


    Whene’er she speaks, my ravish’d ear
    No other voice than hers can hear,
    No other wit but hers approve:
    Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

    If she some other youth commend,
    Though I was once his fondest friend,
    His instant enemy I prove:
    Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

    When she is absent, I no more
    Delight in all that pleased before--
    The clearest spring, or shadiest grove:
    Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

    When fond of power, of beauty vain,
    Her nets she spread for every swain,
    I strove to hate, but vainly strove:
    Tell me, my heart, if this be love?




SAMUEL JOHNSON

1709-1784


_450._ _One-and-Twenty_

    Long-expected one-and-twenty,
      Ling’ring year, at length is flown:
    Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
      Great *** ****, are now your own.

    Loosen’d from the minor’s tether,
      Free to mortgage or to sell,
    Wild as wind, and light as feather,
      Bid the sons of thrift farewell.


    Call the Betsies, Kates, and Jennies,
      All the names that banish care;
    Lavish of your grandsire’s guineas,
      Show the spirit of an heir.

    All that prey on vice and folly
      Joy to see their quarry fly:
    There the gamester, light and jolly,
      There the lender, grave and sly.

    Wealth, my lad, was made to wander,
      Let it wander as it will;
    Call the jockey, call the pander,
      Bid them come and take their fill.

    When the bonny blade carouses,
      Pockets full, and spirits high--
    What are acres? What are houses?
      Only dirt, or wet or dry.

    Should the guardian friend or mother
      Tell the woes of wilful waste,
    Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother;--
      You can hang or drown at last!


_451._ _On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet, a Practiser in Physic_

    Condemn’d to Hope’s delusive mine,
      As on we toil from day to day,
    By sudden blasts or slow decline
      Our social comforts drop away.


    Well tried through many a varying year,
      See Levet to the grave descend,
    Officious, innocent, sincere,
      Of every friendless name the friend.

    Yet still he fills affection’s eye,
      Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
    Nor, lettered Arrogance, deny
      Thy praise to merit unrefined.

    When fainting nature call’d for aid,
      And hov’ring death prepared the blow,
    His vig’rous remedy display’d
      The power of art without the show.

    In Misery’s darkest cavern known,
      His useful care was ever nigh,
    Where hopeless Anguish pour’d his groan,
      And lonely Want retired to die.

    No summons mock’d by chill delay,
      No petty gain disdain’d by pride;
    The modest wants of every day
      The toil of every day supplied.

    His virtues walk’d their narrow round,
      Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
    And sure th’ Eternal Master found
      The single talent well employ’d.

    The busy day, the peaceful night,
      Unfelt, uncounted, glided by;
    His frame was firm--his powers were bright,
      Though now his eightieth year was nigh.


    Then with no fiery throbbing pain,
      No cold gradations of decay,
    Death broke at once the vital chain,
      And freed his soul the nearest way.




RICHARD JAGO

1715-1781


_452._ _Absence_

    With leaden foot Time creeps along
      While Delia is away:
    With her, nor plaintive was the song,
      Nor tedious was the day.

    Ah, envious Pow’r! reverse my doom;
      Now double thy career,
    Strain ev’ry nerve, stretch ev’ry plume,
      And rest them when she’s here!




THOMAS GRAY

1716-1771


_453._ _Elegy written in a Country Churchyard_

    The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
      The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
    The plowman 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,
    Awaits 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 waked 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 circumscribed alone
      Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
    Forbade to wade through 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 tenor 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 inquire 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, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
      Or crazed 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
      Graved 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 marked him for her own._


    _Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,_
      _Heav’n 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._


_454._ _The Curse upon Edward_

      Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
    The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.
      Give ample room, and verge enough
    The characters of hell to trace.
    Mark the year, and mark the night,
    When Severn shall re-echo with affright
    The shrieks of death, thro’ Berkley’s roofs that ring,
    Shrieks of an agonizing King!
      She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
    That tear’st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
      From thee be born, who o’er thy country hangs
    The scourge of Heav’n. What terrors round him wait!
    Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
    And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind.

      Mighty Victor, mighty Lord!
    Low on his funeral couch he lies!
      No pitying heart, no eye, afford
    A tear to grace his obsequies.
    Is the sable warrior fled?
    Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
    The swarm that in thy noon tide beam were born?
    Gone to salute the rising morn.
    Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
    While proudly riding o’er the azure realm
    In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;
      Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;
    Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,
    That, hush’d in grim repose, expects his evening prey,

      Fill high the sparkling bowl,
    The rich repast prepare;
      Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
    Close by the regal chair
      Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
      A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
    Heard ye the din of battle bray,
      Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
      Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
    And thro’ the kindred squadrons mow their way.
      Ye Towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame,
    With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
      Revere his consort’s faith, his father’s fame,
    And spare the meek usurper’s holy head.
    Above, below, the rose of snow,
      Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
    The bristled boar in infant-gore
      Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
    Now, brothers, bending o’er th’ accursèd loom
    Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

      Edward, lo! to sudden fate
    (Weave we the woof. The thread is spun)
      Half of thy heart we consecrate.
    (The web is wove. The work is done.)


_455._ _The Progress of Poesy_

A PINDARIC ODE

      Awake, Æolian lyre, awake,
    And give to rapture all thy trembling strings,
    From Helicon’s harmonious springs
      A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
    The laughing flowers, that round them blow,
    Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
    Now the rich stream of music winds along
    Deep, majestic, smooth and strong,
    Thro’ verdant vales, and Ceres’ golden reign:
    Now rolling down the steep amain,
    Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
    The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.

      O Sovereign of the willing soul,
    Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
    Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares
      And frantic Passions hear thy soft controul.
    On Thracia’s hills the Lord of War
    Has curb’d the fury of his car,
    And dropp’d his thirsty lance at thy command.
    Perching on the sceptred hand
    Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather’d king
    With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
    Quench’d in dark clouds of slumber lie
    The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.

    Thee the voice, the dance, obey,
    Temper’d to thy warbled lay.
      O’er Idalia’s velvet-green
      The rosy-crownèd Loves are seen
    On Cytherea’s day
      With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures,
      Frisking light in frolic measures;
    Now pursuing, now retreating,
      Now in circling troops they meet:
    To brisk notes in cadence beating,
      Glance their many-twinkling feet.
    Slow melting strains their Queen’s approach declare:
      Where’er she turns the Graces homage pay.
    With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
      In gliding state she wins her easy way:
    O’er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
    The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.

      Man’s feeble race what ills await,
    Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
      Disease, and Sorrow’s weeping train,
      And Death, sad refuge from the storms of fate!
    The fond complaint, my song, disprove
    And justify the laws of Jove.
    Say, has he giv’n in vain the heav’nly Muse?
    Night, and all her sickly dews,
    Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry,
    He gives to range the dreary sky:
    Till down the eastern cliffs afar
    Hyperion’s march they spy, and glitt’ring shafts of war.

      In climes beyond the solar road,
    Where shaggy forms o’er ice-built mountains roam,
    The Muse has broke the twilight gloom
      To cheer the shiv’ring native’s dull abode.
    And oft, beneath the od’rous shade
    Of Chili’s boundless forests laid,
    She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat
    In loose numbers wildly sweet
    Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves.
    Her track, where’er the Goddess roves,
    Glory pursue and generous Shame,
    Th’ unconquerable Mind, and Freedom’s holy flame.

    Woods, that wave o’er Delphi’s steep,
    Isles, that crown th’ Ægean deep,
      Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
      Or where Mæander’s amber waves
    In lingering lab’rinths creep,
      How do your tuneful echoes languish,
      Mute, but to the voice of anguish?
    Where each old poetic mountain
      Inspiration breathed around:
    Ev’ry shade and hallow’d fountain
      Murmur’d deep a solemn sound:
    Till the sad Nine, in Greece’s evil hour,
      Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
    Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power,
      And coward Vice, that revels in her chains.
    When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
    They sought, O Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.

      Far from the sun and summer gale,
    In thy green lap was Nature’s darling laid,
    What time, where lucid Avon stray’d,
      To Him the mighty mother did unveil
    Her awful face: the dauntless child
    Stretch’d forth his little arms, and smiled.
    This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear
    Richly paint the vernal year:
    Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy!
    This can unlock the gates of joy;
    Of horror that, and thrilling fears,
    Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

      Nor second he, that rode sublime
    Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
    The secrets of th’ abyss to spy.
      He pass’d the flaming bounds of place and time:
    The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,
    Where Angels tremble while they gaze,
    He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
    Closed his eyes in endless night.
    Behold, where Dryden’s less presumptuous car,
    Wide o’er the fields of glory bear
    Two coursers of ethereal race,
    With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.

    Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
    Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o’er
      Scatters from her pictured urn
      Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
    But ah! ’tis heard no more----
      O Lyre divine! what daring Spirit
      Wakes thee now? Tho’ he inherit
    Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
      That the Theban eagle bear
    Sailing with supreme dominion
      Thro’ the azure deep of air:
    Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
      Such forms as glitter in the Muse’s ray,
    With orient hues, unborrow’d of the Sun:
      Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
    Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
    Beneath the Good how far--but far above the Great.


_456._ _On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes_

    Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
    Where China’s gayest art had dyed
      The azure flowers that blow;
    Demurest of the tabby kind,
    The pensive Selima reclined,
      Gazed on the lake below.

    Her conscious tail her joy declared;
    The fair round face, the snowy beard,
      The velvet of her paws,
    Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
    Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
      She saw; and purr’d applause.

    Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide
    Two angel forms were seen to glide,
      The Genii of the stream:
    Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
    Thro’ richest purple to the view
      Betray’d a golden gleam.

    The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
    A whisker first and then a claw,
      With many an ardent wish,
    She stretch’d in vain to reach the prize.
    What female heart can gold despise?
      What Cat’s averse to fish?


    Presumptuous Maid! with looks intent
    Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
      Nor knew the gulf between.
    (Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled.)
    The slipp’ry verge her feet beguiled,
      She tumbled headlong in.

    Eight times emerging from the flood
    She mew’d to ev’ry wat’ry god,
      Some speedy aid to send.
    No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr’d:
    Nor cruel _Tom_, nor _Susan_ heard.
      A Fav’rite has no friend!

    From hence, ye Beauties, undeceived,
    Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,
      And be with caution bold.
    Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
    And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
      Nor all that glisters, gold.




WILLIAM COLLINS

1721-1759


_457._ _Ode to Simplicity_

        O thou, by Nature taught
        To breathe her genuine thought
    In numbers warmly pure and sweetly strong:
        Who first on mountains wild,
        In Fancy, loveliest child,
    Thy babe and Pleasure’s, nursed the pow’rs of song!


        Thou, who with hermit heart
        Disdain’st the wealth of art,
    And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall:
        But com’st a decent maid,
        In Attic robe array’d,
    O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call!

        By all the honey’d store
        On Hybla’s thymy shore,
    By all her blooms and mingled murmurs dear,
        By her whose love-lorn woe,
        In evening musings slow,
    Soothed sweetly sad Electra’s poet’s ear:

        By old Cephisus deep,
        Who spread his wavy sweep
    In warbled wand’rings round thy green retreat;
        On whose enamell’d side,
        When holy Freedom died,
    No equal haunt allured thy future feet!

        O sister meek of Truth,
        To my admiring youth
    Thy sober aid and native charms infuse!
        The flow’rs that sweetest breathe,
        Though beauty cull’d the wreath,
    Still ask thy hand to range their order’d hues.

        While Rome could none esteem,
        But virtue’s patriot theme,
    You loved her hills, and led her laureate band;
        But stay’d to sing alone
        To one distinguish’d throne,
    And turn’d thy face, and fled her alter’d land.


        No more, in hall or bow’r,
        The passions own thy pow’r.
    Love, only Love her forceless numbers mean;
        For thou hast left her shrine,
        Nor olive more, nor vine,
    Shall gain thy feet to bless the servile scene.

        Though taste, though genius bless
        To some divine excess,
    Faint’s the cold work till thou inspire the whole;
        What each, what all supply,
        May court, may charm our eye,
    Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

        Of these let others ask,
        To aid some mighty task,
    I only seek to find thy temperate vale;
        Where oft my reed might sound
        To maids and shepherds round,
    And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale.


_458._ _How sleep the Brave_

    How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
    By all their country’s wishes blest!
    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 grey,
    To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
    And Freedom shall awhile repair
    To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!


_459._ _Ode to Evening_

    If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
    May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
      Like thy own solemn springs,
      Thy springs and dying gales;

    O nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair’d sun
    Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
      With brede ethereal wove,
      O’erhang his wavy bed:

    Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-eyed bat
    With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
      Or where the beetle winds
      His small but sullen horn,

    As oft he rises, ’midst the twilight path
    Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
      Now teach me, maid composed,
      To breathe some soften’d strain,

    Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,
    May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
      As, musing slow, I hail
      Thy genial loved return!

    For when thy folding-star arising shows
    His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
      The fragrant hours, and elves
      Who slept in buds the day,
    And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,
    And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,
        The pensive pleasures sweet,
        Prepare thy shadowy car:

    Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
    Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow’d pile,
        Or upland fallows grey
        Reflect its last cool gleam.

    Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
    Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut
        That from the mountain’s side
        Views wilds and swelling floods,

    And hamlets brown, and dim-discover’d spires,
    And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all
        Thy dewy fingers draw
        The gradual dusky veil.

    While Spring shall pour his show’rs, as oft he wont,
    And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
        While Summer loves to sport
        Beneath thy lingering light;

    While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
    Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
        Affrights thy shrinking train,
        And rudely rends thy robes:

    So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,
    Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp’d Health
        Thy gentlest influence own,
        And hymn thy favourite name!


_460._ _Fidele_

    To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb
      Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
    Each opening sweet of earliest bloom,
      And rifle all the breathing Spring.

    No wailing ghost shall dare appear
      To vex with shrieks this quiet grove;
    But shepherd lads assemble here,
      And melting virgins own their love.

    No wither’d witch shall here be seen,
      No goblins lead their nightly crew;
    The female fays shall haunt the green,
      And dress thy grave with pearly dew.

    The redbreast oft at evening hours
      Shall kindly lend his little aid,
    With hoary moss, and gather’d flowers,
      To deck the ground where thou art laid.

    When howling winds, and beating rain,
      In tempests shake thy sylvan cell;
    Or ’midst the chase, on every plain,
      The tender thought on thee shall dwell;

    Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
      For thee the tear be duly shed;
    Beloved, till life can charm no more;
      And mourn’d, till Pity’s self be dead.




MARK AKENSIDE

1721-1770


_461._ _Amoret_

    If rightly tuneful bards decide,
      If it be fix’d in Love’s decrees,
    That Beauty ought not to be tried
      But by its native power to please,
    Then tell me, youths and lovers, tell--
    What fair can Amoret excel?

    Behold that bright unsullied smile,
      And wisdom speaking in her mien:
    Yet--she so artless all the while,
      So little studious to be seen--
    We naught but instant gladness know,
    Nor think to whom the gift we owe.

    But neither music, nor the powers
      Of youth and mirth and frolic cheer,
    Add half the sunshine to the hours,
      Or make life’s prospect half so clear,
    As memory brings it to the eye
    From scenes where Amoret was by.

    This, sure, is Beauty’s happiest part;
      This gives the most unbounded sway;
    This shall enchant the subject heart
      When rose and lily fade away;
    And she be still, in spite of Time,
    Sweet Amoret in all her prime.


_462._ _The Complaint_

          Away! away!
      Tempt me no more, insidious Love:
          Thy soothing sway
      Long did my youthful bosom prove:
      At length thy treason is discerned,
      At length some dear-bought caution earn’d:
    Away! nor hope my riper age to move.

          I know, I see
      Her merit. Needs it now be shown,
          Alas! to me?
      How often, to myself unknown,
      The graceful, gentle, virtuous maid
      Have I admired! How often said--
    What joy to call a heart like hers one’s own!

          But, flattering god,
      O squanderer of content and ease
          In thy abode
      Will care’s rude lesson learn to please?
      O say, deceiver, hast thou won
      Proud Fortune to attend thy throne,
    Or placed thy friends above her stern decrees?


_463._ _The Nightingale_

    To-night retired, the queen of heaven
      With young Endymion stays;
    And now to Hesper it is given
    Awhile to rule the vacant sky,
    Till she shall to her lamp supply
      A stream of brighter rays.


    Propitious send thy golden ray,
      Thou purest light above!
    Let no false flame seduce to stray
    Where gulf or steep lie hid for harm;
    But lead where music’s healing charm
      May soothe afflicted love.

    To them, by many a grateful song
      In happier seasons vow’d,
    These lawns, Olympia’s haunts, belong:
    Oft by yon silver stream we walk’d,
    Or fix’d, while Philomela talk’d,
      Beneath yon copses stood.

    Nor seldom, where the beechen boughs
      That roofless tower invade,
    We came, while her enchanting Muse
    The radiant moon above us held:
    Till, by a clamorous owl compell’d,
      She fled the solemn shade.

    But hark! I hear her liquid tone!
      Now Hesper guide my feet!
    Down the red marl with moss o’ergrown,
    Through yon wild thicket next the plain,
    Whose hawthorns choke the winding lane
      Which leads to her retreat.

    See the green space: on either hand
      Enlarged it spreads around:
    See, in the midst she takes her stand,
    Where one old oak his awful shade
    Extends o’er half the level mead,
      Enclosed in woods profound.


    Hark! how through many a melting note
      She now prolongs her lays:
    How sweetly down the void they float!
    The breeze their magic path attends;
    The stars shine out; the forest bends;
      The wakeful heifers graze.

    Whoe’er thou art whom chance may bring
      To this sequester’d spot,
    If then the plaintive Siren sing,
    O softly tread beneath her bower
    And think of Heaven’s disposing power,
      Of man’s uncertain lot.

    O think, o’er all this mortal stage
      What mournful scenes arise:
    What ruin waits on kingly rage;
    How often virtue dwells with woe;
    How many griefs from knowledge flow;
      How swiftly pleasure flies!

    O sacred bird! let me at eve,
      Thus wandering all alone,
    Thy tender counsel oft receive,
    Bear witness to thy pensive airs,
    And pity Nature’s common cares,
      Till I forget my own.




TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT

1721-1771


_464._ _To Leven Water_

    Pure stream, in whose transparent wave
    My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
    No torrents stain thy limpid source,
    No rocks impede thy dimpling course
    Devolving from thy parent lake
    A charming maze thy waters make
    By bowers of birch and groves of pine
    And edges flower’d with eglantine.

    Still on thy banks so gaily green
    May numerous herds and flocks be seen,
    And lasses chanting o’er the pail,
    And shepherds piping in the dale,
    And ancient faith that knows no guile,
    And industry embrown’d with toil,
    And hearts resolved and hands prepared
    The blessings they enjoy to guard.




CHRISTOPHER SMART

1722-1770


_465._ _Song to David_

    Sublime--invention ever young,
    Of vast conception, tow’ring tongue
        To God th’ eternal theme;
    Notes from yon exaltations caught,
    Unrivall’d royalty of thought
        O’er meaner strains supreme.


    His muse, bright angel of his verse,
    Gives balm for all the thorns that pierce,
        For all the pangs that rage;
    Blest light still gaining on the gloom,
    The more than Michal of his bloom,
        Th’ Abishag of his age.

    He sang of God--the mighty source
    Of all things--the stupendous force
        On which all strength depends;
    From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,
    All period, power, and enterprise
        Commences, reigns, and ends.

    Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said
    To Moses; while earth heard in dread,
        And, smitten to the heart,
    At once above, beneath, around,
    All Nature, without voice or sound,
        Replied, O LORD, THOU ART.

    The world, the clustering spheres, He made;
    The glorious light, the soothing shade,
        Dale, champaign, grove, and hill;
    The multitudinous abyss,
    Where Secrecy remains in bliss,
        And Wisdom hides her skill.

    The pillars of the Lord are seven,
    Which stand from earth to topmost heaven;
        His Wisdom drew the plan;
    His Word accomplished the design,
    From brightest gem to deepest mine;
        From Christ enthroned, to Man.


    For Adoration all the ranks
    Of Angels yield eternal thanks,
        And David in the midst;
    With God’s good poor, which, last and least
    In man’s esteem, Thou to Thy feast,
        O blessèd Bridegroom, bidd’st!

    For Adoration, David’s Psalms
    Lift up the heart to deeds of alms;
        And he, who kneels and chants,
    Prevails his passions to control,
    Finds meat and medicine to the soul,
        Which for translation pants.

    For Adoration, in the dome
    Of Christ, the sparrows find a home,
        And on His olives perch:
    The swallow also dwells with thee,
    O man of God’s humility,
        Within his Saviour’s church.

    Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
    And drops upon the leafy limes;
        Sweet, Hermon’s fragrant air:
    Sweet is the lily’s silver bell,
    And sweet the wakeful tapers’ smell
        That watch for early prayer.

    Sweet the young nurse, with love intense,
    Which smiles o’er sleeping innocence;
        Sweet, when the lost arrive:
    Sweet the musician’s ardour beats,
    While his vague mind’s in quest of sweets,
        The choicest flowers to hive.


    Strong is the horse upon his speed;
    Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,
        Which makes at once his game:
    Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;
    Strong through the turbulent profound
        Shoots Xiphias to his aim.

    Strong is the lion--like a coal
    His eyeball,--like a bastion’s mole
        His chest against the foes:
    Strong the gier-eagle on his sail;
    Strong against tide th’ enormous whale
        Emerges as he goes.

    But stronger still, in earth and air,
    And in the sea, the man of prayer,
        And far beneath the tide:
    And in the seat to faith assigned,
    Where ask is have, where seek is find,
        Where knock is open wide.

    Precious the penitential tear;
    And precious is the sigh sincere,
        Acceptable to God:
    And precious are the winning flowers,
    In gladsome Israel’s feast of bowers
        Bound on the hallow’d sod.

    Glorious the sun in mid career;
    Glorious th’ assembled fires appear;
        Glorious the comet’s train:
    Glorious the trumpet and alarm;
    Glorious the Almighty’s stretch’d-out arm;
        Glorious th’ enraptured main:

     glede] kite. Xiphias] sword-fish.

    Glorious the northern lights astream;
    Glorious the song, when God’s the theme;
        Glorious the thunder’s roar:
    Glorious Hosanna from the den;
    Glorious the catholic Amen;
        Glorious the martyr’s gore:

    Glorious--more glorious--is the crown
    Of Him that brought salvation down,
        By meekness call’d thy Son:
    Thou that stupendous truth believed;--
    And now the matchless deed’s achieved,
        Determined, dared, and done!




JANE ELLIOT

1727-1805


_466._ _A Lament for Flodden_

    I’ve heard them lilting at our ewe-milking,
      Lasses a’ lilting before dawn o’ day;
    But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning--
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

    At bughts, in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning.
      Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
    Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but sighing and sabbing,
      Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away.

    In hairst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
      Bandsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray:
    At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching--
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

     _466._ loaning] lane, field-track. wede] weeded. bughts]
     sheep-folds. daffing] joking. leglin] milk-pail. hairst] harvest.
     bandsters] binders. lyart] gray-haired. runkled] wrinkled.
     fleeching] coaxing.

    At e’en, in the gloaming, nae swankies are roaming
      ’Bout stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play;
    But ilk ane sits eerie, lamenting her dearie--
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

    Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
      The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;
    The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
      The prime of our land, lie cauld in the clay.

    We’ll hear nae mair lilting at our ewe-milking;
      Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
    Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning--
      The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

     _466._ swankies] lusty lads. bogle] bogy, hide-and-seek. dool]
     mourning.




OLIVER GOLDSMITH

1728-1774


_467._ _Woman_

    When lovely woman stoops to folly,
      And finds too late that men betray,
    What charm can soothe her melancholy?
      What art can wash her tears away?

    The only art her guilt to cover,
      To hide her shame from ev’ry eye,
    To give repentance to her lover,
      And wring his bosom is--to die.


_468._ _Memory_

    O memory, thou fond deceiver,
      Still importunate and vain,
    To former joys recurring ever,
      And turning all the past to pain:

    Thou, like the world, th’ oppress’d oppressing,
      Thy smiles increase the wretch’s woe:
    And he who wants each other blessing
      In thee must ever find a foe.




ROBERT CUNNINGHAME-GRAHAM OF GARTMORE

1735-1797


_469._ _If Doughty Deeds_

    If doughty deeds my lady please,
      Right soon I’ll mount my steed;
    And strong his arm and fast his seat,
      That bears frae me the meed.
    I’ll wear thy colours in my cap,
      Thy picture in my heart;
    And he that bends not to thine eye
      Shall rue it to his smart!
        Then tell me how to woo thee, Love;
          O tell me how to woo thee!
        For thy dear sake nae care I’ll take,
          Tho’ ne’er another trow me.

    If gay attire delight thine eye
      I’ll dight me in array;
    I’ll tend thy chamber door all night,
      And squire thee all the day.
    If sweetest sounds can win thine ear,
      These sounds I’ll strive to catch;
    Thy voice I’ll steal to woo thysel’,
      That voice that nane can match.
        Then tell me how to woo thee, Love ...

    But if fond love thy heart can gain,
      I never broke a vow;
    Nae maiden lays her skaith to me,
      I never loved but you.
    For you alone I ride the ring,
      For you I wear the blue;
    For you alone I strive to sing,
      O tell me how to woo!
        Then tell me how to woo thee, Love;
          O tell me how to woo thee!
        For thy dear sake nae care I’ll take
          Tho’ ne’er another trow me.




WILLIAM COWPER

1731-1800


_470._ _To Mary Unwin_

    Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,
    Such aid from Heaven as some have feign’d they drew,
    An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
    And undebased by praise of meaner things;
    That ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
    I may record thy worth with honour due,
    In verse as musical as thou art true,
    And that immortalizes whom it sings:
    But thou hast little need. There is a Book
    By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
    On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
    A chronicle of actions just and bright--
      There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine;
      And since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.


_471._ _My Mary_

    The twentieth year is wellnigh past
    Since first our sky was overcast;
    Ah, would that this might be the last!
                                My Mary!

    Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
    I see thee daily weaker grow;
    ’Twas my distress that brought thee low,
                                My Mary!

    Thy needles, once a shining store,
    For my sake restless heretofore,
    Now rust disused, and shine no more;
                                My Mary!

    For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
    The same kind office for me still,
    Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
                                My Mary!

    But well thou play’dst the housewife’s part,
    And all thy threads with magic art
    Have wound themselves about this heart,
                                My Mary!

    Thy indistinct expressions seem
    Like language utter’d in a dream;
    Yet me they charm, whate’er the theme,
                                My Mary!


    Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,
    Are still more lovely in my sight
    Than golden beams of orient light,
                                My Mary!

    For could I view nor them nor thee,
    What sight worth seeing could I see?
    The sun would rise in vain for me,
                                My Mary!

    Partakers of thy sad decline,
    Thy hands their little force resign;
    Yet, gently press’d, press gently mine,
                                My Mary!

    Such feebleness of limbs thou prov’st,
    That now at every step thou mov’st
    Upheld by two; yet still thou lov’st,
                                My Mary!

    And still to love, though press’d with ill,
    In wintry age to feel no chill,
    With me is to be lovely still,
                                My Mary!

    But ah! by constant heed I know
    How oft the sadness that I show
    Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe,
                                My Mary!

    And should my future lot be cast
    With much resemblance of the past,
    Thy worn-out heart will break at last--
                                My Mary!




JAMES BEATTIE

1735-1803


_472._ _An Epitaph_

    Like thee I once have stemm’d the sea of life,
      Like thee have languish’d after empty joys,
    Like thee have labour’d in the stormy strife,
      Been grieved for trifles, and amused with toys.

    Forget my frailties; thou art also frail:
      Forgive my lapses; for thyself may’st fall:
    Nor read unmoved my artless tender tale--
      I was a friend, O man, to thee, to all.




ISOBEL PAGAN

1740-1821


_473._ _Ca’ the Yowes to the Knowes_

    Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,
    Ca’ them where the heather grows,
    Ca’ them where the burnie rows,
        My bonnie dearie.

    As I gaed down the water side,
    There I met my shepherd lad;
    He row’d me sweetly in his plaid,
        And he ca’d me his dearie.

    ‘Will ye gang down the water side,
    And see the waves sae sweetly glide
    Beneath the hazels spreading wide?
        The moon it shines fu’ clearly.’

     _473._ yowes] ewes. knowes] knolls, little hills. rows] rolls.
     row’d] rolled, wrapped.

    ‘I was bred up at nae sic school,
    My shepherd lad, to play the fool,
    And a’ the day to sit in dool,
        And naebody to see me.’

    ‘Ye sall get gowns and ribbons meet,
    Cauf-leather shoon upon your feet,
    And in my arms ye’se lie and sleep,
        And ye sall be my dearie.’

    ‘If ye’ll but stand to what ye’ve said,
    I’se gang wi’ you, my shepherd lad,
    And ye may row me in your plaid,
        And I sall be your dearie.’

    ‘While waters wimple to the sea,
    While day blinks in the lift sae hie,
    Till clay-cauld death sail blin’ my e’e,
        Ye aye sall be my dearie!’

     _473._ dool] dule, sorrow. lift] sky.




ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD

1743-1825


_474._ _Life_

    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 th’ 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 have 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!




FANNY GREVILLE

18th Cent.


_475._ _Prayer for Indifference_

    I ask no kind return of love,
      No tempting charm to please;
    Far from the heart those gifts remove,
      That sighs for peace and ease.

    Nor peace nor ease the heart can know,
      That, like the needle true,
    Turns at the touch of joy or woe,
      But, turning, trembles too.

    Far as distress the soul can wound,
      ’Tis pain in each degree:
    ’Tis bliss but to a certain bound,
      Beyond is agony.




JOHN LOGAN

1748-1788


_476._ _To the Cuckoo_

    Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!
      Thou messenger of Spring!
    Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
      And woods thy welcome ring.

    What time the daisy decks the green,
      Thy certain voice we hear:
    Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
      Or mark the rolling year?

    Delightful visitant! with thee
      I hail the time of flowers,
    And hear the sound of music sweet
      From birds among the bowers.

    The schoolboy, wand’ring through the wood
      To pull the primrose gay,
    Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear,
      And imitates thy lay.

    What time the pea puts on the bloom,
      Thou fli’st thy vocal vale,
    An annual guest in other lands,
      Another Spring to hail.

    Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
      Thy sky is ever clear;
    Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
      No Winter in thy year!

    O could I fly, I’d fly with thee!
      We’d make, with joyful wing,
    Our annual visit o’er the globe,
      Companions of the Spring.




LADY ANNE LINDSAY

1750-1825


_477._ _Auld Robin Gray_

    When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame,
    And a’ the warld to rest are gane,
    The waes o’ my heart fa’ in showers frae my e’e,
    While my gudeman lies sound by me.

    Young Jamie lo’ed me weel, and sought me for his bride;
    But saving a croun he had naething else beside:
    To make the croun a pund, young Jamie gaed to sea;
    And the croun and the pund were baith for me.

    He hadna been awa’ a week but only twa,
    When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stown awa’;
    My mother she fell sick,--and my Jamie at the sea--
    And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin’ me.

    My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin;
    I toil’d day and night, but their bread I couldna win;
    Auld Rob maintain’d them baith, and wi’ tears in his e’e
    Said, ‘Jennie, for their sakes, O, marry me!’

    My heart it said nay; I look’d for Jamie back;
    But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack;
    His ship it was a wrack--Why didna Jamie dee?
    Or why do I live to cry, Wae’s me!

    My father urged me sair: my mother didna speak;
    But she look’d in my face till my heart was like to break:
    They gi’ed him my hand, tho’ my heart was in the sea;
    Sae auld Robin Gray he was gudeman to me.

    I hadna been a wife a week but only four,
    When mournfu’ as I sat on the stane at the door,
    I saw my Jamie’s wraith,--for I couldna think it he,
    Till he said, ‘I’m come hame to marry thee.’

    O sair, sair did we greet, and muckle did we say;
    We took but ae kiss, and we tore ourselves away:
    I wish that I were dead, but I’m no like to dee;
    And why was I born to say, Wae’s me!

    I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;
    I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin;
    But I’ll do my best a gude wife aye to be,
    For auld Robin Gray he is kind unto me.




SIR WILLIAM JONES

1746-1794


_478._ _Epigram_

    On parent knees, a naked new-born child,
    Weeping thou sat’st while all around thee smiled:
    So live, that sinking to thy life’s last sleep,
    Calm thou may’st smile, whilst all around thee weep.




THOMAS CHATTERTON

1752-1770


_479._ _Song from Ælla_

    O sing unto my roundelay,
    O drop the briny tear with me;
    Dance no more at holyday,
    Like a running river be:
        My love is dead,
        Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.

    Black his cryne as the winter night,
    White his rode as the summer snow,
    Red his face as the morning light,
    Cold he lies in the grave below:
        My love is dead,
        Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.

    Sweet his tongue as the throstle’s note,
    Quick in dance as thought can be,
    Deft his tabor, cudgel stout;
    O he lies by the willow-tree!
        My love is dead,
        Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.

     _479._ cryne] hair. rode] complexion.


    Hark! the raven flaps his wing
    In the brier’d dell below;
    Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
    To the nightmares, as they go:
      My love is dead,
      Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.

    See! the white moon shines on high;
    Whiter is my true-love’s shroud:
    Whiter than the morning sky,
    Whiter than the evening cloud:
      My love is dead,
      Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.

    Here upon my true-love’s grave
    Shall the barren flowers be laid;
    Not one holy saint to save
    All the coldness of a maid:
      My love is dead,
      Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.

    With my hands I’ll dent the briers
    Round his holy corse to gre:
    Ouph and fairy, light your fires,
    Here my body still shall be:
      My love is dead,
      Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.

     dent] fasten. gre] grow. ouph] elf.

    Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
    Drain my heartès blood away;
    Life and all its good I scorn,
    Dance by night, or feast by day:
        My love is dead,
        Gone to his death-bed
    All under the willow-tree.




GEORGE CRABBE

1754-1832


_480._ _Meeting_

    My Damon was the first to wake
      The gentle flame that cannot die;
    My Damon is the last to take
      The faithful bosom’s softest sigh:
    The life between is nothing worth,
      O cast it from thy thought away!
    Think of the day that gave it birth,
      And this its sweet returning day.

    Buried be all that has been done,
      Or say that naught is done amiss;
    For who the dangerous path can shun
      In such bewildering world as this?
    But love can every fault forgive,
      Or with a tender look reprove;
    And now let naught in memory live
      But that we meet, and that we love.


_481._ _Late Wisdom_

    We’ve trod the maze of error round,
      Long wandering in the winding glade;
    And now the torch of truth is found,
      It only shows us where we strayed:
    By long experience taught, we know--
      Can rightly judge of friends and foes;
    Can all the worth of these allow,
      And all the faults discern in those.

    Now, ’tis our boast that we can quell
      The wildest passions in their rage,
    Can their destructive force repel,
      And their impetuous wrath assuage.--
    Ah, Virtue! dost thou arm when now
      This bold rebellious race are fled?
    When all these tyrants rest, and thou
      Art warring with the mighty dead?


_482._ _A Marriage Ring_

    The ring, so worn as you behold,
    So thin, so pale, is yet of gold:
    The passion such it was to prove--
    Worn with life’s care, love yet was love.




WILLIAM BLAKE

1757-1827


_483._ _To the Muses_

    Whether on Ida’s shady brow
      Or in the chambers of the East,
    The chambers of the Sun, that now
      From ancient melody have ceased;

    Whether in heaven ye wander fair,
      Or the green corners of the earth,
    Or the blue regions of the air
      Where the melodious winds have birth;

    Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
      Beneath the bosom of the sea,
    Wandering in many a coral grove;
      Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry;

    How have you left the ancient love
      That bards of old enjoy’d in you!
    The languid strings do scarcely move,
      The sound is forced, the notes are few.


_484._ _To Spring_

    O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
    Through the clear windows of the morning, turn
    Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
    Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

    The hills tell one another, and the listening
    Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn’d
    Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth
    And let thy holy feet visit our clime!


    Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds
    Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste
    Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
    Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

    O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
    Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
    Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head,
    Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.


_485._ _Song_

    My silks and fine array,
      My smiles and languish’d air,
    By Love are driven away;
      And mournful lean Despair
    Brings me yew to deck my grave:
    Such end true lovers have.

    His face is fair as heaven
      When springing buds unfold:
    O why to him was’t given,
      Whose heart is wintry cold?
    His breast is Love’s all-worshipp’d tomb,
    Where all Love’s pilgrims come.

    Bring me an axe and spade,
      Bring me a winding-sheet;
    When I my grave have made,
      Let winds and tempests beat:
    Then down I’ll lie, as cold as clay:
    True love doth pass away!


_486._ _Reeds of Innocence_

    Piping down the valleys wild,
      Piping songs of pleasant glee,
    On a cloud I saw a child,
      And he laughing said to me:

    ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’
      So I piped with merry cheer.
    ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’
      So I piped: he wept to hear.

    ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
      Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’
    So I sung the same again,
      While he wept with joy to hear.

    ‘Piper, sit thee down and write
      In a book that all may read.’
    So he vanish’d from my sight;
      And I pluck’d a hollow reed,

    And I made a rural pen,
      And I stain’d the water clear,
    And I wrote my happy songs
      Every child may joy to hear.


_487._ _The Little Black Boy_

    My mother bore me in the southern wild,
      And I am black, but O, my soul is white!
    White as an angel is the English child,
      But I am black, as if bereaved of light.


    My mother taught me underneath a tree,
      And, sitting down before the heat of day,
    She took me on her lap and kissèd me,
      And, pointing to the East, began to say:

    ‘Look at the rising sun: there God does live,
      And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
    And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
      Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

    ‘And we are put on earth a little space,
      That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
    And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
      Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

    ‘For when our souls have learn’d the heat to bear,
      The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
    Saying, “Come out from the grove, my love and care,
      And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.”’

    Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me,
      And thus I say to little English boy.
    When I from black and he from white cloud free,
      And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,

    I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
      To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee;
    And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
      And be like him, and he will then love me.


_488._ _Hear the Voice_

    Hear the voice of the Bard,
    Who present, past, and future, sees;
    Whose ears have heard
    The Holy Word
    That walk’d among the ancient trees;

    Calling the lapsèd soul,
    And weeping in the evening dew;
    That might control
    The starry pole,
    And fallen, fallen light renew!

    ‘O Earth, O Earth, return!
    Arise from out the dewy grass!
    Night is worn,
    And the morn
    Rises from the slumbrous mass.

    ‘Turn away no more;
    Why wilt thou turn away?
    The starry floor,
    The watery shore,
    Is given thee till the break of day.’


_489._ _The Tiger_

    Tiger, tiger, burning bright
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye
    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?


    In what distant deeps or skies
    Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
    On what wings dare he aspire?
    What the hand dare seize the fire?

    And what shoulder and what art
    Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
    And, when thy heart began to beat,
    What dread hand and what dread feet?

    What the hammer? What the chain?
    In what furnace was thy brain?
    What the anvil? What dread grasp
    Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

    When the stars threw down their spears,
    And watered heaven with their tears,
    Did He smile His work to see?
    Did He who made the lamb make thee?

    Tiger, tiger, burning bright
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye
    Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?


_490._ _Cradle Song_

    Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
    Dreaming in the joys of night;
    Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
    Little sorrows sit and weep.

    Sweet babe, in thy face
    Soft desires I can trace,
    Secret joys and secret smiles,
    Little pretty infant wiles.

    As thy softest limbs I feel
    Smiles as of the morning steal
    O’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast
    Where thy little heart doth rest.

    O the cunning wiles that creep
    In thy little heart asleep!
    When thy little heart doth wake,
    Then the dreadful night shall break.


_491._ _Night_

    The sun descending in the west,
      The evening star does shine;
    The birds are silent in their nest.
      And I must seek for mine.
        The moon, like a flower
        In heaven’s high bower,
        With silent delight
        Sits and smiles on the night.

    Farewell, green fields and happy grove,
      Where flocks have took delight:
    Where lambs have nibbled, silent move
      The feet of angels bright;
        Unseen they pour blessing
        And joy without ceasing
        On each bud and blossom,
        On each sleeping bosom.

    They look in every thoughtless nest
      Where birds are cover’d warm;
    They visit caves of every beast,
      To keep them all from harm:
        If they see any weeping
        That should have been sleeping,
        They pour sleep on their head,
        And sit down by their bed.

    When wolves and tigers howl for prey,
      They pitying stand and weep,
    Seeking to drive their thirst away
      And keep them from the sheep.
        But, if they rush dreadful,
        The angels, most heedful,
        Receive each mild spirit,
        New worlds to inherit.

    And there the lion’s ruddy eyes
      Shall flow with tears of gold:
    And pitying the tender cries,
      And walking round the fold:
        Saying, ‘Wrath by His meekness,
        And, by His health, sickness,
        Are driven away
        From our immortal day.

    ‘And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
      I can lie down and sleep,
    Or think on Him who bore thy name,
      Graze after thee, and weep.
        For, wash’d in life’s river,
        My bright mane for ever
        Shall shine like the gold
        As I guard o’er the fold.’


_492._ _Love’s Secret_

    Never seek to tell thy love,
      Love that never told can be;
    For the gentle wind doth move
      Silently, invisibly.

    I told my love, I told my love,
      I told her all my heart,
    Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
      Ah! she did depart!

    Soon after she was gone from me,
      A traveller came by,
    Silently, invisibly:
      He took her with a sigh.




ROBERT BURNS

1759-1796


_493._ _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 stour
      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 nor saw:

     _493._ stour] dust, turmoil.

    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 wiltna gie,
      At least be pity to me shown;
    A thought ungentle canna be
      The thought o’ Mary Morison.


_494._ _Jean_

    Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw,
      I dearly like the west,
    For there the bonnie 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 bonnie flower that springs
      By fountain, shaw, or green;
    There’s not a bonnie bird that sings,
      But minds me o’ my Jean.

     _494._ airts] points of the compass. row] roll.


_495._ _Auld Lang Syne_

    Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
      And never brought to min’?
    Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
      And days o’ lang syne?

    We twa hae rin about the braes,
      And pu’d the gowans fine;
    But we’ve wandered monie a weary fit
      Sin’ auld lang syne.

    We twa hae paidl’t i’ the burn,
      Frae mornin’ sun till dine;
    But seas between us braid hae roar’d
      Sin’ auld lang syne.

    And here’s a hand, my trusty fiere,
      And gie’s a hand o’ thine;
    And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught
      For auld lang syne.

    And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,
      And surely I’ll be mine;
    And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
      For auld lang syne!

          For auld lang syne, my dear,
            For auld lang syne,
          We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
            For auld lang syne.

     gowans] daisies. fit] foot. dine] dinner-time. fiere] partner.
     guid-willie waught] friendly draught.


_496._ _My Bonnie Mary_

    Go fetch to me a pint ’o wine,
      An’ fill it in a silver tassie,
    That I may drink, before I go,
      A service to my bonnie 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 bonnie Mary.

    The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
      The glittering spears are rankèd ready;
    The shouts o’ war are heard afar,
      The battle closes thick and bloody;
    But it’s no the roar o’ sea or shore
      Wad mak me langer wish to tarry;
    Nor shout o’ war that’s heard afar--
      It’s leaving thee, my bonnie Mary!

     _496._ tassie] cup.


_497._ _John Anderson, my Jo_

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

     _497._ jo] sweetheart. brent] smooth, unwrinkled. beld] bald. pow]
     pate.

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

     _497._ canty] cheerful.


_498._ _The Banks o’ Doon_

    Ye flowery banks o’ bonnie 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 bonnie 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 bonnie bird,
      That sings beside thy mate;
    For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
      And wistna o’ my fate.

    Aft hae I roved by bonnie 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
      Upon a morn in June;
    And sae I flourish’d on the morn,
      And sae was pu’d or’ noon.

     _498._ or’] ere.


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

     _498._ staw] stole.


_499._ _Ae Fond Kiss_

    Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
    Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
    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 loved sae kindly,
    Had we never loved 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 fareweel, alas, for ever!
    Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
    Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee!

     _499._ wage] stake, plight.


_500._ _Bonnie Lesley_

    O saw ye bonnie Lesley
      As she gaed o’er the Border?
    She’s gane, like Alexander,
      To spread her conquests farther.

    To see her is to love her,
      And love but her for ever;
    For Nature made her what she is,
      And ne’er made sic anither!

    Thou art a queen, fair Lesley,
      Thy subjects we, before thee:
    Thou art divine, fair Lesley,
      The hearts o’ men adore thee.

    The Deil he couldna scaith thee,
      Or aught that wad belang thee;
    He’d look into thy bonnie face
      And say, ‘I canna wrang thee!’

    The Powers aboon will tent thee,
      Misfortune sha’na steer thee:
    Thou’rt like themsel’ sae lovely,
      That ill they’ll ne’er let near thee.

    Return again, fair Lesley,
      Return to Caledonie!
    That we may brag we hae a lass
      There’s nane again sae bonnie!

     scaith] harm. tent] watch. steer] molest.


_501._ _Highland Mary_

    Ye banks and braes and streams around
      The castle o’ Montgomery,
    Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
      Your waters never drumlie!
    There simmer first unfauld her robes,
      And there the langest tarry;
    For there I took the last fareweel
      O’ my sweet Highland Mary.

    How sweetly bloom’d the gay green birk,
      How rich the hawthorn’s blossom,
    As underneath their fragrant shade
      I clasp’d her to my bosom!
    The golden hours on angel wings
      Flew o’er me and my dearie;
    For dear to me as light and life
      Was my sweet Highland Mary.

    Wi’ monie a vow and lock’d embrace
      Our parting was fu’ tender;
    And, pledging aft to meet again,
      We tore oursels asunder;
    But oh! fell Death’s untimely frost,
      That nipt my flower sae early!
    Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay,
      That wraps my Highland Mary!

    O pale, pale now, those rosy lips
      I aft hae kiss’d sae fondly!
    And closed for aye the sparkling glance
      That dwelt on me sae kindly!

     drumlie] miry.

    And mouldering now in silent dust
      That heart that lo’ed me dearly!
    But still within my bosom’s core
      Shall live my Highland Mary.


_502._ _O were my Love yon Lilac fair_

    O were my Love yon lilac fair,
      Wi’ purple blossoms to the spring,
    And I a bird to shelter there,
      When wearied on my little wing;
    How I wad mourn when it was torn
      By autumn wild and winter rude!
    But I wad sing on wanton wing
      When youthfu’ May its bloom renew’d.

    O gin my Love were yon red rose
      That grows upon the castle wa’,
    And I mysel a drap o’ dew,
      Into her bonnie breast to fa’;
    O there, beyond expression blest,
      I’d feast on beauty a’ the night;
    Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
      Till fley’d awa’ by Phœbus’ light.


_503._ _A Red, Red Rose_

    O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
    That’s newly sprung in June:
    O my Luve’s like the melodie
    That’s sweetly play’d in tune!

    As fair art thou, my bonnie 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;
    I will luve thee still, my dear,
    While the sands o’ life shall run.

    And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
    And fare thee weel a while!
    And I will come again, my Luve,
    Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.


_504._ _Lament for Culloden_

    The lovely lass o’ Inverness,
      Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
    For e’en and morn she cries, ‘Alas!’
      And aye the saut tear blin’s her e’e:
    ‘Drumossie moor, Drumossie day,
      A waefu’ day it was to me!
    For there I lost my father dear,
      My father dear and brethren three.

    ‘Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
      Their graves are growing green to see;
    And by them lies the dearest lad
      That ever blest a woman’s e’e!
    Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
      A bluidy man I trow thou be;
    For monie a heart thou hast made sair,
      That ne’er did wrang to thine or thee.’


_505._ _The Farewell_

    It was a’ for our rightfu’ King
      We left fair Scotland’s strand;
    It was a’ for our rightfu’ King
      We e’er saw Irish land,
                My dear--
      We e’er saw Irish land.

    Now a’ is done that men can do,
      And a’ is done in vain;
    My love and native land, farewell,
      For I maun cross the main,
                My dear--
      For I maun cross the main.

    He turn’d him right and round about
      Upon the Irish shore;
    And gae his bridle-reins a shake,
      With, Adieu for evermore,
                My dear--
      With, Adieu for evermore!

    The sodger frae the wars returns,
      The sailor frae the main;
    But I hae parted frae my love,
      Never to meet again,
                My dear--
      Never to meet again.

    When day is gane, and night is come,
      And a’ folk bound to sleep,
    I think on him that’s far awa’,
      The lee-lang night, and weep,
                My dear--
      The lee-lang night, and weep.

     lee-lang] livelong.


_506._ _Hark! The Mavis_

      _Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,_
        _Ca’ them where the heather grows,_
      _Ca’ them where the burnie rows,_
        _My bonnie dearie._

    Hark! the mavis’ evening sang
    Sounding Clouden’s woods amang.
    Then a-faulding let us gang,
        My bonnie dearie.

    We’ll gae down by Clouden side,
    Through the hazels spreading wide,
    O’er the waves that sweetly glide
        To the moon sae clearly.

    Yonder Clouden’s silent towers,
    Where at moonshine midnight hours
    O’er the dewy bending flowers
        Fairies dance sae cheery.

    Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;
    Thou’rt to Love and Heaven sae dear,
    Nocht of ill may come thee near,
        My bonnie dearie.

    Fair and lovely as thou art,
    Thou hast stown my very heart;
    I can die--but canna part,
        My bonnie dearie.

    While waters wimple to the sea;
    While day blinks in the lift sae hie;
    Till clay-cauld death shall blin’ my e’e,
        Ye shall be my dearie.

      _Ca’ the yowes to the knowes_ ...

     lift] sky.




HENRY ROWE

1750-1819


_507._ _Sun_

    Angel, king of streaming morn;
    Cherub, call’d by Heav’n to shine;
    T’ orient tread the waste forlorn;
    Guide ætherial, pow’r divine;
        Thou, Lord of all within!

    Golden spirit, lamp of day,
    Host, that dips in blood the plain,
    Bids the crimson’d mead be gay,
    Bids the green blood burst the vein;
        Thou, Lord of all within!

    Soul, that wraps the globe in light;
    Spirit, beckoning to arise;
    Drives the frowning brow of night,
    Glory bursting o’er the skies;
        Thou, Lord of all within!


_508._ _Moon_

    Thee too, modest tressèd maid,
      When thy fallen stars appear;
    When in lawn of fire array’d
      Sov’reign of yon powder’d sphere;
    To thee I chant at close of day,
    Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.

    Throned in sapphired ring supreme,
      Pregnant with celestial juice,
    On silver wing thy diamond stream
      Gives what summer hours produce;
    While view’d impearl’d earth’s rich inlay,
    Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.


    Glad, pale Cynthian wine I sip,
      Breathed the flow’ry leaves among;
    Draughts delicious wet my lip;
      Drown’d in nectar drunk my song;
    While tuned to Philomel the lay,
    Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.

    Dew, that od’rous ointment yields,
      Sweets, that western winds disclose,
    Bathing spring’s more purpled fields,
      Soft’s the band that winds the rose;
    While o’er thy myrtled lawns I stray
    Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.




WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES

1762-1850


_509._ _Time and Grief_

    O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay
    Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence
    (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
    The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
    On thee I rest my only hope at last,
    And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
    That flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear,
    I may look back on every sorrow past,
    And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile:
    As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour,
    Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
    Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:--
      Yet ah! how much must this poor heart endure,
      Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!




JOANNA BAILLIE

1762-1851


_510._ _The Outlaw’s Song_

    The chough and crow to roost are gone,
      The owl sits on the tree,
    The hush’d wind wails with feeble moan,
      Like infant charity.
    The wild-fire dances on the fen,
      The red star sheds its ray;
    Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
      It is our op’ning day.

    Both child and nurse are fast asleep,
      And closed is every flower,
    And winking tapers faintly peep
      High from my lady’s bower;
    Bewilder’d hinds with shorten’d ken
      Shrink on their murky way;
    Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
      It is our op’ning day.

    Nor board nor garner own we now,
      Nor roof nor latchèd door,
    Nor kind mate, bound by holy vow
      To bless a good man’s store;
    Noon lulls us in a gloomy den,
      And night is grown our day;
    Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
      And use it as ye may.




MARY LAMB

1765-1847


_511._ _A Child_

    A child’s a plaything for an hour;
      Its pretty tricks we try
    For that or for a longer space--
      Then tire, and lay it by.

    But I knew one that to itself
      All seasons could control;
    That would have mock’d the sense of pain
      Out of a grievèd soul.

    Thou straggler into loving arms,
      Young climber-up of knees,
    When I forget thy thousand ways
      Then life and all shall cease.




CAROLINA, LADY NAIRNE

1766-1845


_512._ _The Land o’ the Leal_

    I’m wearin’ awa’, John
    Like snaw-wreaths in 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 is aye fair
      In the land o’ the leal.

    Our bonnie bairn’s there, John,
    She was baith gude and fair, John;
    And O! we grudged her sair
      To the land o’ the leal.
    But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John,
    And joy’s a-coming fast, John,
    The joy that’s aye to last
      In the land o’ the leal.

    Sae dear’s the joy was bought, John,
    Sae free the battle fought, John,
    That sinfu’ man e’er brought
      To the land o’ the leal.
    O, dry your glistening e’e, John!
    My saul langs to be free, John,
    And angels beckon me
      To the land o’ the leal.

    O, haud ye leal and true, John!
    Your day it’s wearin’ through, John,
    And I’ll welcome you
      To the land o’ the leal.
    Now 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.




JAMES HOGG

1770-1835


_513._ _A Boy’s Song_

    Where the pools are bright and deep,
    Where the grey trout lies asleep,
    Up the river and over the lea,
    That’s the way for Billy and me.

    Where the blackbird sings the latest,
    Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
    Where the nestlings chirp and flee,
    That’s the way for Billy and me.


    Where the mowers mow the cleanest,
    Where the hay lies thick and greenest,
    There to track the homeward bee,
    That’s the way for Billy and me.

    Where the hazel bank is steepest,
    Where the shadow falls the deepest,
    Where the clustering nuts fall free,
    That’s the way for Billy and me.

    Why the boys should drive away
    Little sweet maidens from the play,
    Or love to banter and fight so well,
    That’s the thing I never could tell.

    But this I know, I love to play
    Through the meadow, among the hay;
    Up the water and over the lea,
    That’s the way for Billy and me.


_514._ _Kilmeny_

    Bonnie Kilmeny gaed up the glen;
    But it wasna to meet Duneira’s men,
    Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
    For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
    It was only to hear the yorlin sing,
    And pu’ the cress-flower round the spring;
    The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye,
    And the nut that hung frae the hazel tree;
    For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
    But lang may her minny look o’er the wa’,
    And lang may she seek i’ the green-wood shaw;
    Lang the laird o’ Duneira blame,
    And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame!

     _514._ yorlin] the yellow-hammer. hindberrye] bramble. minny]
     mother. greet] mourn.

    When many a day had come and fled,
    When grief grew calm, and hope was dead,
    When mess for Kilmeny’s soul had been sung,
    When the bedesman had pray’d and the dead bell rung,
    Late, late in gloamin’ when all was still,
    When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
    The wood was sere, the moon i’ the wane,
    The reek o’ the cot hung over the plain,
    Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
    When the ingle low’d wi’ an eiry leme,
    Late, late in the gloamin’ Kilmeny came hame!

    ‘Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
    Lang hae we sought baith holt and den;
    By linn, by ford, and green-wood tree,
    Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
    Where gat you that joup o’ the lily scheen?
    That bonnie snood of the birk sae green?
    And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?
    Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?’

    Kilmeny look’d up with a lovely grace,
    But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny’s face;
    As still was her look, and as still was her e’e,
    As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
    Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.
    For Kilmeny had been, she knew not where,
    And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
    Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,
    Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew.
    But it seem’d as the harp of the sky had rung,
    And the airs of heaven play’d round her tongue,

     westlin] western. its lane] alone, by itself. low’d] flamed. eiry
     leme] eery gleam. linn] waterfall. joup] mantle.

    When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,
    And a land where sin had never been;
    A land of love and a land of light,
    Withouten sun, or moon, or night;
    Where the river swa’d a living stream,
    And the light a pure celestial beam;
    The land of vision, it would seem,
    A still, an everlasting dream.

      In yon green-wood there is a waik,
    And in that waik there is a wene,
      And in that wene there is a maike,
    That neither has flesh, blood, nor bane;
    And down in yon green-wood he walks his lane.

    In that green wene Kilmeny lay,
    Her bosom happ’d wi’ flowerets gay;
    But the air was soft and the silence deep,
    And bonnie Kilmeny fell sound asleep.
    She kenn’d nae mair, nor open’d her e’e,
    Till waked by the hymns of a far countrye.

    She ‘waken’d on a couch of the silk sae slim,
    All striped wi’ the bars of the rainbow’s rim;
    And lovely beings round were rife,
    Who erst had travell’d mortal life;
    And aye they smiled and ’gan to speer,
    ‘What spirit has brought this mortal here?’--

    ‘Lang have I journey’d, the world wide,’
    A meek and reverend fere replied;
    ‘Baith night and day I have watch’d the fair,
    Eident a thousand years and mair.

     swa’d] swelled. waik] a row of deep damp grass. wene]? whin, a
     furze-bush. maike] a mate, match, equal. his lane] alone, by
     himself. happ’d] covered. speer] inquire. fere] fellow. eident]
     unintermittently.

    Yes, I have watch’d o’er ilk degree,
    Wherever blooms femenitye;
    But sinless virgin, free of stain
    In mind and body, fand I nane.
    Never, since the banquet of time,
    Found I a virgin in her prime.
    Till late this bonnie maiden I saw
    As spotless as the morning snaw:
    Full twenty years she has lived as free
    As the spirits that sojourn in this countrye:
    I have brought her away frae the snares of men,
    That sin or death she never may ken.’--

    They clasp’d her waist and her hands sae fair,
    They kiss’d her cheek and they kemed her hair,
    And round came many a blooming fere,
    Saying, ‘Bonnie Kilmeny, ye’re welcome here!
    Women are freed of the littand scorn:
    O blest be the day Kilmeny was born!
    Now shall the land of the spirits see,
    Now shall it ken what a woman may be!
    Many a lang year, in sorrow and pain,
    Many a lang year through the world we’ve gane,
    Commission’d to watch fair womankind,
    For it’s they who nurice the immortal mind.
    We have watch’d their steps as the dawning shone,
    And deep in the green-wood walks alone;
    By lily bower and silken bed,
    The viewless tears have o’er them shed;
    Have soothed their ardent minds to sleep,
    Or left the couch of love to weep.

     kemed] combed.

    We have seen! we have seen! but the time must come,
    And the angels will weep at the day of doom!

    ‘O would the fairest of mortal kind
    Aye keep the holy truths in mind,
    That kindred spirits their motions see,
    Who watch their ways with anxious e’e,
    And grieve for the guilt of humanitye!
    O, sweet to Heaven the maiden’s prayer,
    And the sigh that heaves a bosom sae fair!
    And dear to Heaven the words of truth,
    And the praise of virtue frae beauty’s mouth!
    And dear to the viewless forms of air,
    The minds that kyth as the body fair!

    ‘O bonnie Kilmeny! free frae stain,
    If ever you seek the world again,
    That world of sin, of sorrow and fear,
    O tell of the joys that are waiting here;
    And tell of the signs you shall shortly see;
    Of the times that are now, and the times that shall be.’--
    They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away,
    And she walk’d in the light of a sunless day;
    The sky was a dome of crystal bright,
    The fountain of vision, and fountain of light:
    The emerald fields were of dazzling glow,
    And the flowers of everlasting blow.
    Then deep in the stream her body they laid,
    That her youth and beauty never might fade;
    And they smiled on heaven, when they saw her lie
    In the stream of life that wander’d bye.
    And she heard a song, she heard it sung,
    She kenn’d not where; but sae sweetly it rung,

     kyth] show, appear.

    It fell on the ear like a dream of the morn:
    ‘O, blest be the day Kilmeny was born!
    Now shall the land of the spirits see,
    Now shall it ken what a woman may be!
    The sun that shines on the world sae bright,
    A borrow’d gleid frae the fountain of light;
    And the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun,
    Like a gouden bow, or a beamless sun,
    Shall wear away, and be seen nae mair,
    And the angels shall miss them travelling the air.
    But lang, lang after baith night and day,
    When the sun and the world have elyed away;
    When the sinner has gane to his waesome doom,
    Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!’--

    They bore her away, she wist not how,
    For she felt not arm nor rest below;
    But so swift they wain’d her through the light,
    ’Twas like the motion of sound or sight;
    They seem’d to split the gales of air,
    And yet nor gale nor breeze was there.
    Unnumber’d groves below them grew,
    They came, they pass’d, and backward flew,
    Like floods of blossoms gliding on,
    In moment seen, in moment gone.
    O, never vales to mortal view
    Appear’d like those o’er which they flew!
    That land to human spirits given,
    The lowermost vales of the storied heaven;
    From thence they can view the world below,
    And heaven’s blue gates with sapphires glow,
    More glory yet unmeet to know.

     gleid] spark, glow. elyed] vanished.

    They bore her far to a mountain green,
    To see what mortal never had seen;
    And they seated her high on a purple sward,
    And bade her heed what she saw and heard,
    And note the changes the spirits wrought,
    For now she lived in the land of thought.
    She look’d, and she saw nor sun nor skies,
    But a crystal dome of a thousand dyes:
    She look’d, and she saw nae land aright,
    But an endless whirl of glory and light:
    And radiant beings went and came,
    Far swifter than wind, or the linkèd flame.
    She hid her e’en frae the dazzling view;
    She look’d again, and the scene was new.

    She saw a sun on a summer sky,
    And clouds of amber sailing bye;
    A lovely land beneath her lay,
    And that land had glens and mountains gray;
    And that land had valleys and hoary piles,
    And marlèd seas, and a thousand isles.
    Its fields were speckled, its forests green
    And its lakes were all of the dazzling sheen,
    Like magic mirrors, where slumbering lay
    The sun and the sky and the cloudlet gray;
    Which heaved and trembled, and gently swung,
    On every shore they seem’d to be hung;
    For there they were seen on their downward plain
    A thousand times and a thousand again;
    In winding lake and placid firth,
    Little peaceful heavens in the bosom of earth.

     marlèd] variegated, parti-coloured.

    Kilmeny sigh’d and seem’d to grieve,
    For she found her heart to that land did cleave;
    She saw the corn wave on the vale,
    She saw the deer run down the dale;
    She saw the plaid and the broad claymore,
    And the brows that the badge of freedom bore;
    And she thought she had seen the land before.

    She saw a lady sit on a throne,
    The fairest that ever the sun shone on!
    A lion lick’d her hand of milk,
    And she held him in a leish of silk;
    And a leifu’ maiden stood at her knee,
    With a silver wand and melting e’e;
    Her sovereign shield till love stole in,
    And poison’d all the fount within.

    Then a gruff untoward bedesman came,
    And hundit the lion on his dame;
    And the guardian maid wi’ the dauntless e’e,
    She dropp’d a tear, and left her knee;
    And she saw till the queen frae the lion fled,
    Till the bonniest flower of the world lay dead;
    A coffin was set on a distant plain,
    And she saw the red blood fall like rain;
    Then bonnie Kilmeny’s heart grew sair,
    And she turn’d away, and could look nae mair.

    Then the gruff grim carle girn’d amain,
    And they trampled him down, but he rose again;
    And he baited the lion to deeds of weir,
    Till he lapp’d the blood to the kingdom dear;

     leifu’] lone, wistful. girn’d] snarled. weir] war.

    And weening his head was danger-preef,
    When crown’d with the rose and clover leaf,
    He gowl’d at the carle, and chased him away
    To feed wi’ the deer on the mountain gray.
    He gowl’d at the carle, and geck’d at Heaven,
    But his mark was set, and his arles given.
    Kilmeny a while her e’en withdrew;
    She look’d again, and the scene was new.

    She saw before her fair unfurl’d
    One half of all the glowing world,
    Where oceans roll’d, and rivers ran,
    To bound the aims of sinful man.
    She saw a people, fierce and fell,
    Burst frae their bounds like fiends of hell;
    Their lilies grew, and the eagle flew;
    And she herkèd on her ravening crew,
    Till the cities and towers were wrapp’d in a blaze,
    And the thunder it roar’d o’er the lands and the seas.
    The widows they wail’d, and the red blood ran,
    And she threatened an end to the race of man;
    She never lened, nor stood in awe,
    Till caught by the lion’s deadly paw.
    O, then the eagle swink’d for life,
    And brainyell’d up a mortal strife;
    But flew she north, or flew she south,
    She met wi’ the gowl o’ the lion’s mouth.

    With a mooted wing and waefu’ maen,
    The eagle sought her eiry again;
    But lang may she cower in her bloody nest,
    And lang, lang sleek her wounded breast,

     gowl’d] howled. geck’d] mocked. arles] money paid on striking a
     bargain; fig. a beating. lened] crouched. swink’d] laboured.
     brainyell’d] stirred, beat. mooted] moulted.

    Before she sey another flight,
    To play with the norland lion’s might.

    But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw,
    So far surpassing nature’s law,
    The singer’s voice wad sink away,
    And the string of his harp wad cease to play.
    But she saw till the sorrows of man were bye,
    And all was love and harmony;
    Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away,
    Like flakes of snaw on a winter day.

    Then Kilmeny begg’d again to see
    The friends she had left in her own countrye;
    To tell of the place where she had been,
    And the glories that lay in the land unseen;
    To warn the living maidens fair,
    The loved of Heaven, the spirits’ care,
    That all whose minds unmeled remain
    Shall bloom in beauty when time is gane.

    With distant music, soft and deep,
    They lull’d Kilmeny sound asleep;
    And when she awaken’d, she lay her lane,
    All happ’d with flowers, in the green-wood wene.
    When seven lang years had come and fled,
    When grief was calm, and hope was dead;
    When scarce was remember’d Kilmeny’s name,
    Late, late in a gloamin’ Kilmeny came hame!
    And O, her beauty was fair to see,
    But still and steadfast was her e’e!
    Such beauty bard may never declare,
    For there was no pride nor passion there;

     sey] essay. unmeled] unblemished. her lane] alone, by herself.

    And the soft desire of maiden’s e’en
    In that mild face could never be seen.
    Her seymar was the lily flower,
    And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
    And her voice like the distant melodye,
    That floats along the twilight sea.
    But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
    And keepèd afar frae the haunts of men;
    Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
    To suck the flowers, and drink the spring.
    But wherever her peaceful form appear’d,
    The wild beasts of the hill were cheer’d;
    The wolf play’d blythly round the field,
    The lordly byson low’d and kneel’d;
    The dun deer woo’d with manner bland,
    And cower’d aneath her lily hand.
    And when at even the woodlands rung,
    When hymns of other worlds she sung
    In ecstasy of sweet devotion,
    O, then the glen was all in motion!
    The wild beasts of the forest came,
    Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame,
    And goved around, charm’d and amazed;
    Even the dull cattle croon’d and gazed,
    And murmur’d and look’d with anxious pain
    For something the mystery to explain.
    The buzzard came with the throstle-cock;
    The corby left her houf in the rock;
    The blackbird alang wi’ the eagle flew;
    The hind came tripping o’er the dew;

     seymar]=cymar, a slight covering. raike] range, wander. bughts]
     milking-pens. goved] stared, gazed. corby] raven. houf] haunt.

    The wolf and the kid their raike began,
    And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran;
    The hawk and the hern attour them hung,
    And the merle and the mavis forhooy’d their young;
    And all in a peaceful ring were hurl’d;
    It was like an eve in a sinless world!

    When a month and a day had come and gane,
    Kilmeny sought the green-wood wene;
    There laid her down on the leaves sae green,
    And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen.
    But O, the words that fell from her mouth
    Were words of wonder, and words of truth!
    But all the land were in fear and dread,
    For they kendna whether she was living or dead.
    It wasna her hame, and she couldna remain;
    She left this world of sorrow and pain,
    And return’d to the land of thought again.

     _514._ raike] ramble. tod] fox. attour] out over. forhooy’d]
     neglected.




WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

1770-1850


_Lucy_


_515._ _i_

    Strange fits of passion have I known:
      And I will dare to tell,
    But in the lover’s ear alone,
      What once to me befell.

    When she I loved look’d every day
      Fresh as a rose in June,
    I to her cottage bent my way,
      Beneath an evening moon.

    Upon the moon I fix’d my eye,
    All over the wide lea;
    With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
    Those paths so dear to me.

    And now we reach’d the orchard-plot;
    And, as we climb’d the hill,
    The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
    Came near and nearer still.

    In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
    Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
    And all the while my eyes I kept
    On the descending moon.

    My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
    He raised, and never stopp’d:
    When down behind the cottage roof,
    At once, the bright moon dropp’d.

    What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
    Into a lover’s head!
    ‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
    ‘If Lucy should be dead!’


_516._ _ii_

    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!


_517._ _iii_

    I traveled among unknown men,
     In lands beyond the sea;
    Nor, England! did I know till then
      What love I bore to thee.

    ’Tis past, that melancholy dream!
      Nor will I quit thy shore
    A second time; for still I seem
      To love thee more and more.

    Among thy mountains did I feel
      The joy of my desire;
    And she I cherish’d turn’d her wheel
      Beside an English fire.

    Thy mornings show’d, thy nights conceal’d,
      The bowers where Lucy play’d;
    And thine too is the last green field
      That Lucy’s eyes survey’d.


_518._ _iv_

    Three years she grew in sun and shower;
    Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower
      On earth was never sown;
    This child I to myself will take;
    She shall be mine, and I will make
      A lady of my own.


    ‘Myself will to my darling be
    Both law and impulse: and with me
      The girl, in rock and plain,
    In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
    Shall feel an overseeing power
      To kindle or restrain.

    ‘She shall be sportive as the fawn
    That wild with glee across the lawn
      Or up the mountain springs;
    And hers shall be the breathing balm,
    And hers the silence and the calm
      Of mute insensate things.

    ‘The floating clouds their state shall lend
    To her; for her the willow bend;
      Nor shall she fail to see
    Even in the motions of the storm
    Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form
      By silent sympathy.

    ‘The stars of midnight shall be dear
    To her; and she shall lean her ear
      In many a secret place
    Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
    And beauty born of murmuring sound
      Shall pass into her face.

    ‘And vital feelings of delight
    Shall rear her form to stately height,
      Her virgin bosom swell;
    Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
    While she and I together live
      Here in this happy dell.’


    Thus Nature spake--The work was done--
    How soon my Lucy’s race was run!
      She died, and left to me
    This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
    The memory of what has been,
      And never more will be.


_519._ _v_

    A slumber did my spirit seal;
      I had no human fears:
    She seem’d a thing that could not feel
      The touch of earthly years.

    No motion has she now, no force;
      She neither hears nor sees;
    Roll’d round in earth’s diurnal course,
      With rocks, and stones, and trees.


_520._ _Upon Westminster Bridge_

    Earth has not anything to show more fair:
      Dull would he be 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!


_521._ _Evening on Calais Beach_

    It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
      The holy time is quiet as a Nun
      Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
    Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
    The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea:
      Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
      And doth with his eternal motion make
    A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
    Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
      If thou appear untouch’d by solemn thought,
      Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
    Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;
      And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
      God being with thee when we know it not.


_522._ _On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, 1802_

    Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee;
      And was the safeguard of the West: the worth
      Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
    Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.
    She was a maiden City, bright and free;
      No guile seduced, no force could violate;
      And, when she took unto herself a mate,
    She must espouse the everlasting Sea.
    And what if she had seen those glories fade,
      Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
    Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid
      When her long life hath reach’d its final day:
    Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
      Of that which once was great is pass’d away.


_England, 1802_

_523._ _i_

    O friend! I know not which way I must look
      For comfort, being, as I am, opprest,
      To think that now our life is only drest
    For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook,
    Or groom!--We must run glittering like a brook
      In the open sunshine, or we are unblest:
      The wealthiest man among us is the best:
    No grandeur now in nature or in book
    Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
      This is idolatry; and these we adore:
      Plain living and high thinking are no more:
      The homely beauty of the good old cause
    Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
      And pure religion breathing household laws.


_524._ _ii_

    Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
      England hath need of thee: she is a fen
      Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
    Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
    Have forfeited their ancient English dower
      Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
      O raise us up, return to us again,
    And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
    Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
      Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
      Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
      So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
    In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
      The lowliest duties on herself did lay.


_525._ _iii_

    Great men have been among us; hands that penn’d
      And tongues that utter’d wisdom--better none:
      The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington,
    Young Vane, and others who call’d Milton friend.
    These moralists could act and comprehend:
      They knew how genuine glory was put on;
      Taught us how rightfully a nation shone
    In splendour: what strength was, that would not bend
    But in magnanimous meekness. France, ’tis strange,
      Hath brought forth no such souls as we had then.
    Perpetual emptiness! unceasing change!
      No single volume paramount, no code,
      No master spirit, no determined road;
      But equally a want of books and men!


_526._ _iv_

    It is not to be thought of that the flood
      Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
      Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
    Hath flow’d, ‘with pomp of waters, unwithstood,’--
    Roused though it be full often to a mood
      Which spurns the check of salutary bands,--
      That this most famous stream in bogs and sands
    Should perish; and to evil and to good
    Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
      Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
    We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
      That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
    Which Milton held.--In everything we are sprung
      Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.


_527._ _v_

    When I have borne in memory what has tamed
      Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
      When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
    The student’s bower for gold, some fears unnamed
    I had, my Country--am I to be blamed?
      Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,
      Verily, in the bottom of my heart,
    Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.
    For dearly must we prize thee; we who find
      In thee a bulwark for the cause of men;
      And I by my affection was beguiled:
    What wonder if a Poet now and then,
    Among the many movements of his mind,
      Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

_528._ _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?

    Whatever 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 listen'd, motionless and still;
    And, as I mounted up the hill,
    The music in my heart I bore,
    Long after it was heard no more.

_529._ _Perfect Woman_

    She was a phantom of delight
    When first she gleam’d 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 waylay.


    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 plann’d,
    To warn, to comfort, and command;
    And yet a Spirit still, and bright
    With something of angelic light.


_530._ _Daffodils_

    I wander’d lonely as a cloud
      That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
    When all at once I saw a crowd,
      A host, of golden daffodils;
    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

    Continuous as the stars that shine
      And twinkle on the Milky Way,
    They stretch’d in never-ending line
      Along the margin of a bay:
    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

    The waves beside them danced, but they
      Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
    A poet could not but be gay,
      In such a jocund company:
    I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
    What wealth the show to me had brought:

    For oft, when on my couch I lie
      In vacant or in pensive mood,
    They flash upon that inward eye
      Which is the bliss of solitude;
    And then my heart with pleasure fills,
    And dances with the daffodils.


_531._ _Ode to Duty_

    Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
    O Duty! if that name thou love,
    Who art a light to guide, a rod
    To check the erring and reprove;
    Thou, who art victory and law
    When empty terrors overawe;
    From vain temptations dost set free;
    And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!

    There are who ask not if thine eye
    Be on them; who, in love and truth,
    Where no misgiving is, rely
    Upon the genial sense of youth:
    Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;
    Who do thy work, and know it not:
    O, if through confidence misplaced
    They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

    Serene will be our days and bright,
    And happy will our nature be,
    When love is an unerring light,
    And joy its own security.
    And they a blissful course may hold
    Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
    Live in the spirit of this creed;
    Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

    I, loving freedom, and untried;
    No sport of every random gust,
    Yet being to myself a guide,
    Too blindly have reposed my trust:
    And oft, when in my heart was heard
    Thy timely mandate, I deferr’d
    The task, in smoother walks to stray;
    But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

    Through no disturbance of my soul,
    Or strong compunction in me wrought,
    I supplicate for thy control;
    But in the quietness of thought.
    Me this uncharter’d freedom tires;
    I feel the weight of chance-desires;
    My hopes no more must change their name,
    I long for a repose that ever is the same.

    Yet not the less would I throughout
    Still act according to the voice
    Of my own wish; and feel past doubt
    That my submissiveness was choice:
    Not seeking in the school of pride
    For ‘precepts over dignified,’
    Denial and restraint I prize
    No farther than they breed a second Will more wise.

    Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
    The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
    Nor know we anything so fair
    As is the smile upon thy face:
    Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
    And fragrance in thy footing treads;
    Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
    And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

    To humbler functions, awful Power!
    I call thee: I myself commend
    Unto thy guidance from this hour;
    O, let my weakness have an end!
    Give unto me, made lowly wise,
    The spirit of self-sacrifice;
    The confidence of reason give;
    And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!


_532._ _The Rainbow_

    My heart leaps up when I behold
    A rainbow in the sky:
    So was it when my life began;
    So is it now I am a man;
    So be it when I shall grow old,
            Or let me die!
    The Child is father of the Man;
    And I could wish my days to be
    Bound each to each by natural piety.


_The Sonnet_


_533._ _i_

    Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room,
      And hermits are contented with their cells,
      And students with their pensive citadels;
    Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
    Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
      High as the highest peak of Furness fells,
      Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
    In truth the prison unto which we doom
    Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me,
      In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
      Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
    Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
    Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
      Should find brief solace there, as I have found.


_534._ _ii_

    Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd,
      Mindless of its just honours; with this key
      Shakespeare unlock'd his heart; the melody
    Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
    A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
      With it Camöens sooth'd an exile's grief;
      The Sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf
    Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd
    His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
      It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from Faery-land
    To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
      Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
    The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
    Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

_535._ _The World_

    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-gather’d 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 wreathèd horn.


_536._ _Ode_

_Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood_

    There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
        The earth, and every common sight,
                  To me did seem
        Apparell’d 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 pass’d 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 blessèd 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 fullness 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 look’d 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-learnèd 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 realized,
    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 tripp’d 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.


_537._ _Desideria_

    Surprised by joy--impatient as the Wind
      I turned to share the transport--O! with whom
      But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
    That spot which no vicissitude can find?
    Love, faithful love, recall'd thee to my mind--
      But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
      Even for the least division of an hour,
    Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
    To my most grievous loss?--That thought's return
      Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
    Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
      Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
    That neither present time, nor years unborn
      Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.


_538._ _Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon_

    I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
      As being pass’d away.--Vain sympathies!
      For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
    I see what was, and is, and will abide;
    Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
      The Form remains, the Function never dies;
      While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
    We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
    The elements, must vanish;--be it so!
      Enough, if something from our hands have power
      To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
    And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
      Through love, through hope, and faith’s transcendent dower,
    We feel that we are greater than we know.


_539._ _Mutability_

    From low to high doth dissolution climb,
      And sink from high to low, along a scale
      Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
    A musical but melancholy chime,
    Which they can hear who meddle not with crime.
      Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
      Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
    The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
    That in the morning whiten’d hill and plain
    And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
      Of yesterday, which royally did wear
    His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
      Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
    Or the unimaginable touch of Time.


_540._ _The Trosachs_

    There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass
    But were an apt confessional for one
      Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,
    That Life is but a tale of morning grass
    Wither’d at eve. From scenes of art which chase
      That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes
      Feed it ’mid Nature’s old felicities,
    Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass
    Untouch’d, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest,
      If from a golden perch of aspen spray
      (October’s workmanship to rival May)
    The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast
      That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,
    Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!


_541._ _Speak!_

    Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant
    Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
      Of absence withers what was once so fair?
    Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
    Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant--
      Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
    The mind’s least generous wish a mendicant
      For naught but what thy happiness could spare.
    Speak--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
      A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
    Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
      Than a forsaken bird’s-nest fill’d with snow
      ’Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine--
      Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!




SIR WALTER SCOTT

1771-1832


_542._ _Proud Maisie_

    Proud Maisie is in the wood,
      Walking so early;
    Sweet Robin sits on the bush,
      Singing so rarely.

    ‘Tell me, thou bonny bird,
      When shall I marry me?’
    --‘When six braw gentlemen
      Kirkward shall carry ye.’

    ‘Who makes the bridal bed,
      Birdie, say truly?’
    --‘The grey-headed sexton
      That delves the grave duly.

    ‘The glow-worm o’er grave and stone
      Shall light thee steady;
    The owl from the steeple sing
      Welcome, proud lady!’


_543._ _Brignall Banks_

    O Brignall banks are wild and fair,
      And Greta woods are green,
    And you may gather garlands there,
      Would grace a summer queen:
    And as I rode by Dalton Hall,
      Beneath the turrets high,
    A Maiden on the castle wall
      Was singing merrily:--


    ‘O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
      And Greta woods are green!
    I’d rather rove with Edmund there
      Than reign our English Queen.’

    ‘If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me
      To leave both tower and town,
    Thou first must guess what life lead we,
      That dwell by dale and down:
    And if thou canst that riddle read,
      As read full well you may,
    Then to the green-wood shalt thou speed
      As blithe as Queen of May.’

    Yet sung she, ‘Brignall banks are fair,
      And Greta woods are green!
    I’d rather rove with Edmund there
      Than reign our English Queen.

    ‘I read you by your bugle horn
      And by your palfrey good,
    I read you for a Ranger sworn
      To keep the King’s green-wood.’
    ‘A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn,
      And ’tis at peep of light;
    His blast is heard at merry morn,
      And mine at dead of night.’

    Yet sung she, ‘Brignall banks are fair,
      And Greta woods are gay!
    I would I were with Edmund there,
      To reign his Queen of May!

    ‘With burnish’d brand and musketoon
      So gallantly you come,
    I read you for a bold Dragoon,
      That lists the tuck of drum.’
    ‘I list no more the tuck of drum,
      No more the trumpet hear;
    But when the beetle sounds his hum,
      My comrades take the spear.

    ‘And O! though Brignall banks be fair,
      And Greta woods be gay,
    Yet mickle must the maiden dare,
      Would reign my Queen of May!

    ‘Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
      A nameless death I’ll die;
    The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
      Were better mate than I!
    And when I’m with my comrades met
      Beneath the green-wood bough,
    What once we were we all forget,
      Nor think what we are now.’

    _Chorus._ Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
                     And Greta woods are green,
                   And you may gather flowers there
                     Would grace a summer queen.


_544._ _Lucy Ashton’s Song_

    Look not thou on beauty’s charming;
    Sit thou still when kings are arming;
    Taste not when the wine-cup glistens;
    Speak not when the people listens;
    Stop thine ear against the singer;
    From the red gold keep thy finger;
    Vacant heart and hand and eye,
    Easy live and quiet die.


_545._ _Answer_

    Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
      To all the sensual world proclaim,
    One crowded hour of glorious life
      Is worth an age without a name.


_546._ _The Rover’s Adieu_

    A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
      A weary lot is thine!
    To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
      And press the rue for wine.
    A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien,
      A feather of the blue,
    A doublet of the Lincoln green--
      No more of me ye knew,
            My Love!
    No more of me ye knew.

    ‘This morn is merry June, I trow,
      The rose is budding fain;
    But she shall bloom in winter snow
      Ere we two meet again.’
    --He turn’d his charger as he spake
      Upon the river shore,
    He gave the bridle-reins a shake,
      Said ‘Adieu for evermore,
              My Love!
    And adieu for evermore.’


_Patriotism_


_547._ _1. Innominatus_

    Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
    Who never to himself hath said,
      ‘This is my own, my native land!’
    Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d
    As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
      From wandering on a foreign strand?
    If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
    For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
    High though his titles, proud his name,
    Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
    Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
    The wretch, concentred all in self,
    Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
    And, doubly dying, shall go down
    To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
    Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.


_548._ _2. Nelson, Pitt, Fox_

    To mute and to material things
    New life revolving summer brings;
    The genial call dead Nature hears,
    And in her glory reappears.
    But oh, my Country’s wintry state
    What second spring shall renovate?
    What powerful call shall bid arise
      The buried warlike and the wise;
    The mind that thought for Britain’s weal,
    The hand that grasp’d the victor steel?
    The vernal sun new life bestows
    Even on the meanest flower that blows;
    But vainly, vainly may he shine
    Where glory weeps o’er NELSON’S shrine;
    And vainly pierce the solemn gloom
    That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallow’d tomb!

    Deep graved in every British heart,
    O never let those names depart!
    Say to your sons,--Lo, here his grave,
    Who victor died on Gadite wave!
    To him, as to the burning levin,
    Short, bright, resistless course was given.
    Where’er his country’s foes were found
    Was heard the fated thunder’s sound,
    Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
    Roll’d, blazed, destroy’d--and was no more.

    Nor mourn ye less his perish’d worth,
    Who bade the conqueror go forth,
    And launch’d that thunderbolt of war
    On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
    Who, born to guide such high emprise,
    For Britain’s weal was early wise;
    Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
    For Britain’s sins, an early grave!
    --His worth, who in his mightiest hour
    A bauble held the pride of power,
    Spurn’d at the sordid lust of pelf,
    And served his Albion for herself;
    Who, when the frantic crowd amain
    Strain’d at subjection’s bursting rein,
    O’er their wild mood full conquest gain’d,
    The pride he would not crush, restrain’d,
    Show’d their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
    And brought the freeman’s arm to aid the freeman’s laws.

    Hadst thou but lived, though stripp’d of power,
    A watchman on the lonely tower,
    Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
    When fraud or danger were at hand;
    By thee, as by the beacon-light,
    Our pilots had kept course aright;
    As some proud column, though alone,
    Thy strength had propp’d the tottering throne.
    Now is the stately column broke,
    The beacon-light is quench’d in smoke,
    The trumpet’s silver voice is still,
    The warder silent on the hill!

    O think, how to his latest day,
    When Death, just hovering, claim’d his prey.
    With Palinure’s unalter’d mood
    Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
    Each call for needful rest repell’d,
    With dying hand the rudder held,
    Till in his fall with fateful sway
    The steerage of the realm gave way.
    Then--while on Britain’s thousand plains
    One unpolluted church remains,
    Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent around
    The bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,
    But still upon the hallow’d day
    Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
    While faith and civil peace are dear,
    Grace this cold marble with a tear:--
    He who preserved them, PITT, lies here!

    Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
    Because his rival slumbers nigh;
    Nor be thy _Requiescat_ dumb
    Lest it be said o’er Fox’s tomb.
    For talents mourn, untimely lost,
    When best employ’d, and wanted most;
    Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
    And wit that loved to play, not wound;
    And all the reasoning powers divine
    To penetrate, resolve, combine;
    And feelings keen, and fancy’s glow--
    They sleep with him who sleeps below:
    And, if thou mourn’st they could not save
    From error him who owns this grave,
    Be every harsher thought suppress’d,
    And sacred be the last long rest.
    _Here_, where the end of earthly things
    Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
    Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
    Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
    _Here_, where the fretted vaults prolong
    The distant notes of holy song,
    As if some angel spoke agen,
    ‘All peace on earth, good-will to men’;
    If ever from an English heart,
    O, _here_ let prejudice depart,
    And, partial feeling cast aside,
    Record that Fox a Briton died!
    When Europe crouch’d to France’s yoke,
    And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
    And the firm Russian’s purpose brave
    Was bartered by a timorous slave--
    Even then dishonour’s peace he spurn’d,
    The sullied olive-branch return’d,
    Stood for his country’s glory fast,
    And nail’d her colours to the mast!
    Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
    A portion in this honour’d grave;
    And ne’er held marble in its trust
    Of two such wondrous men the dust.

    With more than mortal powers endow’d,
    How high they soar’d above the crowd!
    Theirs was no common party race,
    Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
    Like fabled gods, their mighty war
    Shook realms and nations in its jar;
    Beneath each banner proud to stand,
    Look’d up the noblest of the land,
    Till through the British world were known
    The names of PITT and FOX alone.
    Spells of such force no wizard grave
    E’er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
    Though his could drain the ocean dry,
    And force the planets from the sky.
    These spells are spent, and, spent with these,
    The wine of life is on the lees.
    Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
    For ever tomb’d beneath the stone,
    Where--taming thought to human pride!--
    The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
    Drop upon Fox’s grave the tear,
    ’Twill trickle to his rival’s bier;
    O’er PITT’s the mournful requiem sound,
    And FOX’s shall the notes rebound.
    The solemn echo seems to cry,
    ‘Here let their discord with them die.
    Speak not for those a separate doom
    Whom fate made Brothers in the tomb;
    But search the land of living men,
    Where wilt thou find their like agen?’




SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

1772-1834


_549._ _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_


PART I

[Sidenote: An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding
feast, and detaineth one.]

    It is an ancient Mariner,
    And he stoppeth one of three.
    ‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
    Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

    The Bridegroom’s doors are open’d wide,
    And I am next of kin;
    The guests are met, the feast is set:
    May’st hear the merry din.’

    He holds him with his skinny hand,
    ‘There was a ship,’ quoth he.
    ‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
    Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

[Sidenote: The Wedding-Guest is spellbound by the eye of the old
seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.]

    He holds him with his glittering eye--
    The Wedding-Guest stood still,
    And listens like a three years’ child:
    The Mariner hath his will.


    The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
    He cannot choose but hear;
    And thus spake on that ancient man,
    The bright-eyed Mariner.

    ‘The ship was cheer’d, the harbour clear’d,
    Merrily did we drop
    Below the kirk, below the hill,
    Below the lighthouse top.

[Sidenote: The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good
wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line.]

    The Sun came up upon the left,
    Out of the sea came he!
    And he shone bright, and on the right
    Went down into the sea.

    Higher and higher every day,
    Till over the mast at noon----’
    The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
    For he heard the loud bassoon.

[Sidenote: The Wedding Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner
continueth his tale.]

    The bride hath paced into the hall,
    Red as a rose is she;
    Nodding their heads before her goes
    The merry minstrelsy.

    The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
    Yet he cannot choose but hear;
    And thus spake on that ancient man,
    The bright-eyed Mariner.

[Sidenote: The ship drawn by a storm toward the South Pole.]

    ‘And now the Storm-blast came, and he
    Was tyrannous and strong:
    He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
    And chased us south along.


    With sloping masts and dipping prow,
    As who pursued with yell and blow
    Still treads the shadow of his foe,
    And forward bends his head,
    The ship drove fast, loud roar’d the blast,
    And southward aye we fled.

    And now there came both mist and snow,
    And it grew wondrous cold:
    And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
    As green as emerald.

[Sidenote: The land of ice, and of fearful sounds, where no living thing
was to be seen.]

    And through the drifts the snowy clifts
    Did send a dismal sheen:
    Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--
    The ice was all between.

    The ice was here, the ice was there,
    The ice was all around:
    It crack’d and growl’d, and roar’d and howl’d,
    Like noises in a swound!

[Sidenote: Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the
snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.]

    At length did cross an Albatross,
    Thorough the fog it came;
    As if it had been a Christian soul,
    We hail’d it in God’s name.

    It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
    And round and round it flew.
    The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
    The helmsman steer’d us through!

[Sidenote: And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and
followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating
ice.]

    And a good south wind sprung up behind;
    The Albatross did follow,
    And every day, for food or play,
    Came to the mariners’ hollo!


    In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
    It perch’d for vespers nine;
    Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
    Glimmer’d the white moonshine.’

[Sidenote: The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of
good omen.]

    ‘God save thee, ancient Mariner,
    From the fiends, that plague thee thus!--
    Why look’st thou so?’--‘With my crossbow
    I shot the Albatross.


PART II

    ‘The Sun now rose upon the right:
    Out of the sea came he,
    Still hid in mist, and on the left
    Went down into the sea.

    And the good south wind still blew behind,
    But no sweet bird did follow,
    Nor any day for food or play
    Came to the mariners’ hollo!

[Sidenote: His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner for killing
the bird of good luck.]

    And I had done a hellish thing,
    And it would work ’em woe:
    For all averr’d I had kill’d the bird
    That made the breeze to blow.
    Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
    That made the breeze to blow!

[Sidenote: But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus
make themselves accomplices in the crime.]

    Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
    The glorious Sun uprist:
    Then all averr’d I had kill’d the bird
    That brought the fog and mist.
    ’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
    That bring the fog and mist.

[Sidenote: The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean,
and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.]

    The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
    The furrow follow’d free;
    We were the first that ever burst
    Into that silent sea.

[Sidenote: The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.]

    Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
    ’Twas sad as sad could be;
    And we did speak only to break
    The silence of the sea!

    All in a hot and copper sky,
    The bloody Sun, at noon,
    Right up above the mast did stand,
    No bigger than the Moon.

    Day after day, day after day,
    We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
    As idle as a painted ship
    Upon a painted ocean.

[Sidenote: And the Albatross begins to be avenged.]

    Water, water, everywhere,
    And all the boards did shrink;
    Water, water, everywhere,
    Nor any drop to drink.

    The very deep did rot: O Christ!
    That ever this should be!
    Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
    Upon the slimy sea.

    About, about, in reel and rout
    The death-fires danced at night;
    The water, like a witch’s oils,
    Burnt green, and blue, and white.

[Sidenote: A Spirit had followed them, one of the invisible inhabitants
of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the
learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael
Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no
climate or element without one or more.]

    And some in dreams assurèd were
    Or the Spirit that plagued us so;
    Nine fathom deep he had follow’d us
    From the land of mist and snow.

    And every tongue, through utter drought,
    Was wither’d at the root;
    We could not speak, no more than if
    We had been choked with soot.

[Sidenote: The shipmates in their sore distress, would fain throw the
whole guilt on the ancient Mariner: in sign whereof they hang the dead
sea-bird round his neck.]

    Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
    Had I from old and young!
    Instead of the cross, the Albatross
    About my neck was hung.


PART III

[Sidenote: The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar
off.]

    ‘There passed a weary time. Each throat
    Was parch’d, and glazed each eye.
    A weary time! a weary time!
    How glazed each weary eye!
    When looking westward, I beheld
    A something in the sky.

    At first it seem’d a little speck,
    And then it seem’d a mist;
    It moved and moved, and took at last
    A certain shape, I wist.

    A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
    And still it near’d and near’d:
    As if it dodged a water-sprite,
    It plunged, and tack’d, and veer’d.

[Sidenote: At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a
dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.]

    With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
    We could nor laugh nor wail;
    Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
    I bit my arm, I suck’d the blood,
    And cried, A sail! a sail!

[Sidenote: A flash of joy;]

    With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
    Agape they heard me call:
    Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
    And all at once their breath drew in,
    As they were drinking all.

[Sidenote: And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward
without wind or tide?]

    See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
    Hither to work us weal--
    Without a breeze, without a tide,
    She steadies with upright keel!

    The western wave was all aflame,
    The day was wellnigh done!
    Almost upon the western wave
    Rested the broad, bright Sun;
    When that strange shape drove suddenly
    Betwixt us and the Sun.

[Sidenote: It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.]

    And straight the Sun was fleck’d with bars
    (Heaven’s Mother send us grace!),
    As if through a dungeon-grate he peer’d
    With broad and burning face.

    Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
    How fast she nears and nears!
    Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
    Like restless gossameres?

[Sidenote: And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun.
The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other, on board the
skeleton ship. Like vessel, like crew!]

    Are those her ribs through which the Sun
    Did peer, as through a grate?
    And is that Woman all her crew?
    Is that a Death? and are there two?
    Is Death that Woman’s mate?

    Her lips were red, her looks were free,
    Her locks were yellow as gold:
    Her skin was as white as leprosy,
    The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
    Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

[Sidenote: Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship’s crew, and
she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.]

    The naked hulk alongside came,
    And the twain were casting dice;
    “The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!”
    Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

[Sidenote: No twilight within the courts of the Sun.]

    The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out:
    At one stride comes the dark;
    With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,
    Off shot the spectre-bark.

[Sidenote: At the rising of the Moon,]

    We listen’d and look’d sideways up!
    Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
    My life-blood seem’d to sip!
    The stars were dim, and thick the night,
    The steersman’s face by his lamp gleam’d white;
    From the sails the dew did drip--
    Till clomb above the eastern bar
    The hornèd Moon, with one bright star
    Within the nether tip.

[Sidenote: One after another,]

    One after one, by the star-dogg’d Moon,
    Too quick for groan or sigh,
    Each turn’d his face with a ghastly pang,
    And cursed me with his eye.

[Sidenote: His shipmates drop down dead.]

    Four times fifty living men
    (And I heard nor sigh nor groan),
    With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
    They dropp’d down one by one.

[Sidenote: But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.]

    The souls did from their bodies fly--
    They fled to bliss or woe!
    And every soul, it pass’d me by
    Like the whizz of my crossbow!’


PART IV

[Sidenote: The Wedding-Guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him.]

    ‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
    I fear thy skinny hand!
    And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
    As is the ribb’d sea-sand.

[Sidenote: But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and
proceedeth to relate his horrible penance.]

    I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
    And thy skinny hand so brown.’--
    ‘Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
    This body dropt not down.

    Alone, alone, all, all alone,
    Alone on a wide, wide sea!
    And never a saint took pity on
    My soul in agony.

[Sidenote: He despiseth the creatures of the calm.]

    The many men, so beautiful!
    And they all dead did lie:
    And a thousand thousand slimy things
    Lived on; and so did I.

[Sidenote: And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.]

    I look’d upon the rotting sea,
    And drew my eyes away;
    I look’d upon the rotting deck,
    And there the dead men lay.


    I look’d to heaven, and tried to pray;
    But or ever a prayer had gusht,
    A wicked whisper came, and made
    My heart as dry as dust.

    I closed my lids, and kept them close,
    And the balls like pulses beat;
    But the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,
    Lay like a load on my weary eye,
    And the dead were at my feet.

[Sidenote: But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.]

    The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
    Nor rot nor reek did they:
    The look with which they look’d on me
    Had never pass’d away.

    An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
    A spirit from on high;
    But oh! more horrible than that
    Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!
    Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
    And yet I could not die.

[Sidenote: In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the Moon,
and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere
the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest and their
native country and their own natural homes, which they enter
unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a
silent joy at their arrival.]

    The moving Moon went up the sky,
    And nowhere did abide;
    Softly she was going up,
    And a star or two beside--

    Her beams bemock’d the sultry main,
    Like April hoar-frost spread;
    But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
    The charmèd water burnt alway
    A still and awful red.

[Sidenote: By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God’s creatures of the
great calm.]

    Beyond the shadow of the ship,
    I watch’d the water-snakes:
    They moved in tracks of shining white,
    And when they rear’d, the elfish light
    Fell off in hoary flakes.

    Within the shadow of the ship
    I watch’d their rich attire:
    Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
    They coil’d and swam; and every track
    Was a flash of golden fire.

[Sidenote: Their beauty and their happiness.]

[Sidenote: He blesseth them in his heart.]

    O happy living things! no tongue
    Their beauty might declare:
    A spring of love gush’d from my heart,
    And I bless’d them unaware:
    Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
    And I bless’d them unaware.

[Sidenote: The spell begins to break.]

    The selfsame moment I could pray;
    And from my neck so free
    The Albatross fell off, and sank
    Like lead into the sea.


PART V

    ‘O sleep! it is a gentle thing,
    Beloved from pole to pole!
    To Mary Queen the praise be given!
    She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
    That slid into my soul.

[Sidenote: By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed
with rain.]

    The silly buckets on the deck,
    That had so long remain’d,
    I dreamt that they were fill’d with dew;
    And when I awoke, it rain’d.


    My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
    My garments all were dank;
    Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
    And still my body drank.

    I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
    I was so light--almost
    I thought that I had died in sleep,
    And was a blessèd ghost.

[Sidenote: He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in
the sky and the element.]

    And soon I heard a roaring wind:
    It did not come anear;
    But with its sound it shook the sails,
    That were so thin and sere.

    The upper air burst into life;
    And a hundred fire-flags sheen;
    To and fro they were hurried about!
    And to and fro, and in and out,
    The wan stars danced between.

    And the coming wind did roar more loud.
    And the sails did sigh like sedge;
    And the rain pour’d down from one black cloud;
    The Moon was at its edge.

    The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
    The Moon was at its side;
    Like waters shot from some high crag,
    The lightning fell with never a jag,
    A river steep and wide.

[Sidenote: The bodies of the ship’s crew are inspired, and the ship
moves on;]

    The loud wind never reached the ship,
    Yet now the ship moved on!
    Beneath the lightning and the Moon
    The dead men gave a groan.


    They groan’d, they stirr’d, they all uprose,
    Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
    It had been strange, even in a dream,
    To have seen those dead men rise.

    The helmsman steer’d, the ship moved on;
    Yet never a breeze up-blew;
    The mariners all ’gan work the ropes,
    Where they were wont to do;
    They raised their limbs like lifeless tools--
    We were a ghastly crew.

    The body of my brother’s son
    Stood by me, knee to knee:
    The body and I pull’d at one rope,
    But he said naught to me.’

[Sidenote: But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or
middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the
invocation of the guardian saint.]

    ‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’
    ‘Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest:
    ’Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
    Which to their corses came again,
    But a troop of spirits blest:

    For when it dawn’d--they dropp’d their arms,
    And cluster’d round the mast;
    Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
    And from their bodies pass’d.

    Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
    Then darted to the Sun;
    Slowly the sounds came back again,
    Now mix’d, now one by one.

    Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
    I heard the skylark sing;
    Sometimes all little birds that are,
    How they seem’d to fill the sea and air
    With their sweet jargoning!


    And now ’twas like all instruments,
    Now like a lonely flute;
    And now it is an angel’s song,
    That makes the Heavens be mute.

    It ceased; yet still the sails made on
    A pleasant noise till noon,
    A noise like of a hidden brook
    In the leafy month of June,
    That to the sleeping woods all night
    Singeth a quiet tune.

    Till noon we quietly sail’d on,
    Yet never a breeze did breathe:
    Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
    Moved onward from beneath.

[Sidenote: The lonesome Spirit from the South Pole carries on the ship
as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still
requireth vengeance.]

    Under the keel nine fathom deep,
    From the land, of mist and snow,
    The Spirit slid: and it was he
    That made the ship to go.
    The sails at noon left off their tune,
    And the ship stood still also.

    The Sun, right up above the mast,
    Had fix’d her to the ocean:
    But in a minute she ’gan stir,
    With a short uneasy motion--
    Backwards and forwards half her length
    With a short uneasy motion.

    Then like a pawing horse let go,
    She made a sudden bound:
    It flung the blood into my head,
    And I fell down in a swound.

[Sidenote: The Polar Spirit’s fellow-demons, the invisible inhabitants
of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to
the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been
accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.]

    How long in that same fit I lay,
    I have not to declare;
    But ere my living life return’d,
    I heard, and in my soul discern’d
    Two voices in the air.

    “Is it he?” quoth one, “is this the man?
    By Him who died on cross,
    With his cruel bow he laid full low
    The harmless Albatross.

    The Spirit who bideth by himself
    In the land of mist and snow,
    He loved the bird that loved the man
    Who shot him with his bow.”

    The other was a softer voice,
    As soft as honey-dew:
    Quoth he, “The man hath penance done,
    And penance more will do.”


PART VI

      _First Voice_:

    ‘“But tell me, tell me! speak again.
    Thy soft response renewing--
    What makes that ship drive on so fast?
    What is the Ocean doing?”

      _Second Voice_:

    “Still as a slave before his lord,
    The Ocean hath no blast;
    His great bright eye most silently
    Up to the Moon is cast--


    If he may know which way to go;
    For she guides him smooth or grim.
    See, brother, see! how graciously
    She looketh down on him.”

[Sidenote: The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic
power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could
endure.]

      _First Voice_:

    “But why drives on that ship so fast,
    Without or wave or wind?”

      _Second Voice_:

    “The air is cut away before,
    And closes from behind.

    Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
    Or we shall be belated:
    For slow and slow that ship will go,
    When the Mariner’s trance is abated.’

[Sidenote: The super-natural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and
his penance begins anew.]

    I woke, and we were sailing on
    As in a gentle weather:
    ’Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;
    The dead men stood together.

    All stood together on the deck,
    For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
    All fix’d on me their stony eyes,
    That in the Moon did glitter.

    The pang, the curse, with which they died.
    Had never pass’d away:
    I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
    Nor turn them up to pray.

[Sidenote: The curse is finally expiated.]

    And now this spell was snapt: once more
    I viewed the ocean green,
    And look’d far forth, yet little saw
    Of what had else been seen--


    Like one that on a lonesome road
    Doth walk in fear and dread,
    And having once turned round, walks on,
    And turns no more his head;
    Because he knows a frightful fiend
    Doth close behind him tread.

    But soon there breathed a wind on me,
    Nor sound nor motion made:
    Its path was not upon the sea,
    In ripple or in shade.

    It raised my hair, it fann’d my cheek
    Like a meadow-gale of spring--
    It mingled strangely with my fears,
    Yet it felt like a welcoming.

    Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
    Yet she sail’d softly too:
    Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
    On me alone it blew.

[Sidenote: And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.]

    O dream of joy! is this indeed
    The lighthouse top I see?
    Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
    Is this mine own countree?

    We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,
    And I with sobs did pray--
    O let me be awake, my God!
    Or let me sleep alway.

    The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
    So smoothly it was strewn!
    And on the bay the moonlight lay,
    And the shadow of the Moon.


    The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
    That stands above the rock:
    The moonlight steep’d in silentness
    The steady weathercock.

[Sidenote: The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,]

    And the bay was white with silent light
    Till rising from the same,
    Full many shapes, that shadows were,
    In crimson colours came.

[Sidenote: And appear in their own forms of light.]

    A little distance from the prow
    Those crimson shadows were:
    I turn’d my eyes upon the deck--
    O Christ! what saw I there!

    Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
    And, by the holy rood!
    A man all light, a seraph-man,
    On every corse there stood.

    This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
    It was a heavenly sight!
    They stood as signals to the land,
    Each one a lovely light;

    This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
    No voice did they impart--
    No voice; but O, the silence sank
    Like music on my heart.

    But soon I heard the dash of oars,
    I heard the Pilot’s cheer;
    My head was turn’d perforce away,
    And I saw a boat appear.


    The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,
    I heard them coming fast:
    Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
    The dead men could not blast.

    I saw a third--I heard his voice:
    It is the Hermit good!
    He singeth loud his godly hymns
    That he makes in the wood.
    He’ll shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away
    The Albatross’s blood.


PART VII

[Sidenote: The Hermit of the Wood.]

    ‘This hermit good lives in that wood
    Which slopes down to the sea.
    How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
    He loves to talk with marineres
    That come from a far countree.

    He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve--
    He hath a cushion plump.
    It is the moss that wholly hides
    The rotted old oak-stump.

    The skiff-boat near’d: I heard them talk,
    “Why, this is strange, I trow!
    Where are those lights so many and fair,
    That signal made but now?”

[Sidenote: Approacheth the ship with wonder.]

    “Strange, by my faith!” the Hermit said--
    “And they answer’d not our cheer!
    The planks look warp’d! and see those sails,
    How thin they are and sere!
    I never saw aught like to them,
    Unless perchance it were
    Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
    My forest-brook along;
    When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
    And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
    That eats the she-wolf’s young.”

    “Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look--
    (The Pilot made reply)
    I am a-fear’d.”--“Push on, push on!”
    Said the Hermit cheerily.

    The boat came closer to the ship,
    But I nor spake nor stirr’d;
    The boat came close beneath the ship,
    And straight a sound was heard.

[Sidenote: The ship suddenly sinketh.]

    Under the water it rumbled on,
    Still louder and more dread:
    It reach’d the ship, it split the bay;
    The ship went down like lead.

[Sidenote: The ancient Mariner is saved in the Pilot’s boat.]

    Stunn’d by that loud and dreadful sound,
    Which sky and ocean smote,
    Like one that hath been seven days drown’d
    My body lay afloat;
    But swift as dreams, myself I found
    Within the Pilot’s boat.

    Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
    The boat spun round and round;
    And all was still, save that the hill
    Was telling of the sound.

    I moved my lips--the Pilot shriek’d
    And fell down in a fit;
    The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
    And pray’d where he did sit.


    I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,
    Who now doth crazy go,
    Laugh’d loud and long, and all the while
    His eyes went to and fro.
    “Ha! ha!” quoth he, “full plain I see
    The Devil knows how to row.”

    And now, all in my own countree,
    I stood on the firm land!
    The Hermit stepp’d forth from the boat,
    And scarcely he could stand.

[Sidenote: The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to
shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him.]

    “O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!”
    The Hermit cross’d his brow.
    “Say quick,” quoth he, “I bid thee say--
    What manner of man art thou?”

    Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d
    With a woful agony,
    Which forced me to begin my tale;
    And then it left me free.

[Sidenote: And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony
constraineth him to travel from land to land;]

    Since then, at an uncertain hour,
    That agony returns:
    And till my ghastly tale is told,
    This heart within me burns.

    I pass, like night, from land to land;
    I have strange power of speech;
    That moment that his face I see,
    I know the man that must hear me:
    To him my tale I teach.

    What loud uproar bursts from that door!
    The wedding-guests are there:
    But in the garden-bower the bride
    And bride-maids singing are:
    And hark, the little vesper bell,
    Which biddeth me to prayer!

    O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
    Alone on a wide, wide sea:
    So lonely ’twas, that God Himself
    Scarce seemèd there to be.

    O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
    ’Tis sweeter far to me,
    To walk together to the kirk
    With a goodly company!--

    To walk together to the kirk,
    And all together pray,
    While each to his great Father bends,
    Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
    And youths and maidens gay!

[Sidenote: And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all
things that God made and loveth.]

    Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
    To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
    He prayeth well, who loveth well
    Both man and bird and beast.

    He prayeth best, who loveth best
    All things both great and small;
    For the dear God who loveth us,
    He made and loveth all.’

    The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
    Whose beard with age is hoar,
    Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
    Turn’d from the bridegroom’s door,

    He went like one that hath been stunn’d,
    And is of sense forlorn:
    A sadder and a wiser man
    He rose the morrow morn.


_550._ _Kubla Khan_

      In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
        A stately pleasure-dome decree:
      Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
      Through caverns measureless to man
        Down to a sunless sea.
      So twice five miles of fertile ground
      With walls and towers were girdled round:
    And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
    Where blossom’d many an incense-bearing tree;
    And here were forests ancient as the hills,
    Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

    But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
    Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
    A savage place! as holy and enchanted
    As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
    By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
    And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
    As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
    A mighty fountain momently was forced;
    Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
    Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
    Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
    And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
    It flung up momently the sacred river.
    Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
    Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
    Then reach’d the caverns measureless to man,
    And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
    And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
    Ancestral voices prophesying war!
      The shadow of the dome of pleasure
        Floated midway on the waves;
      Where was heard the mingled measure
        From the fountain and the caves.
    It was a miracle of rare device,
    A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

      A damsel with a dulcimer
        In a vision once I saw:
      It was an Abyssinian maid,
        And on her dulcimer she play’d,
      Singing of Mount Abora.
      Could I revive within me,
    Her symphony and song,
    To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
    That with music loud and long,
    I would build that dome in air,
    That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
    And all who heard should see them there,
    And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
    His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
    Weave a circle round him thrice,
      And close your eyes with holy dread,
      For he on honey-dew hath fed,
    And drunk the milk of Paradise.


_551._ _Love_

    All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
        Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
    All are but ministers of Love,
        And feed his sacred flame.

    Oft in my waking dreams do I
    Live o’er again that happy hour,
    When midway on the mount I lay,
        Beside the ruin’d tower.

    The moonshine, stealing o’er the scene,
    Had blended with the lights of eve;
    And she was there, my hope, my joy,
        My own dear Genevieve!

    She lean’d against the armèd man,
    The statue of the armèd Knight;
    She stood and listen’d to my lay,
        Amid the lingering light.

    Few sorrows hath she of her own,
    My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
    She loves me best whene’er I sing
        The songs that make her grieve.

    I play’d a soft and doleful air;
    I sang an old and moving story--
    An old rude song, that suited well
        That ruin wild and hoary.

    She listen’d with a flitting blush,
    With downcast eyes and modest grace;
    For well she knew I could not choose
        But gaze upon her face.

    I told her of the Knight that wore
    Upon his shield a burning brand;
    And that for ten long years he woo’d
        The Lady of the Land.

    I told her how he pined: and ah!
    The deep, the low, the pleading tone
    With which I sang another’s love,
        Interpreted my own.

    She listened with a flitting blush,
    With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
    And she forgave me, that I gazed
        Too fondly on her face!

    But when I told the cruel scorn
    That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
    And that he cross’d the mountain-woods,
        Nor rested day nor night;

    That sometimes from the savage den,
    And sometimes from the darksome shade,
    And sometimes starting up at once
        In green and sunny glade--

    There came and look’d him in the face
    An angel beautiful and bright;
    And that he knew it was a Fiend,
        This miserable Knight!

    And that, unknowing what he did,
    He leap’d amid a murderous band,
    And saved from outrage worse than death
        The Lady of the Land;--

    And how she wept and clasp’d his knees;
    And how she tended him in vain--
    And ever strove to expiate
        The scorn that crazed his brain;--

    And that she nursed him in a cave;
    And how his madness went away,
    When on the yellow forest leaves
        A dying man he lay;--

    His dying words--but when I reach’d
    That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
    My faltering voice and pausing harp
        Disturb’d her soul with pity!

    All impulses of soul and sense
    Had thrill’d my guileless Genevieve;
    The music and the doleful tale,
        The rich and balmy eve;

    And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
    An undistinguishable throng,
    And gentle wishes long subdued,
        Subdued and cherish’d long!

    She wept with pity and delight,
    She blush’d with love and virgin shame;
    And like the murmur of a dream,
        I heard her breathe my name.

    Her bosom heaved--she stepp’d aside,
    As conscious of my look she stept--
    Then suddenly, with timorous eye
        She fled to me and wept.

    She half enclosed me with her arms,
    She press’d me with a meek embrace;
    And bending back her head, look’d up,
        And gazed upon my face.

    ’Twas partly love, and partly fear,
    And partly ’twas a bashful art,
    That I might rather feel, than see.
        The swelling of her heart.

    I calm’d her fears, and she was calm,
    And told her love with virgin pride;
    And so I won my Genevieve,
        My bright and beauteous Bride.


_552._ _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 flash’d 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!
    Naught cared this body for wind or weather
    When Youth and I lived 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 alter’d 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 housemates still.

    Dewdrops 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.


_553._ _Time, Real and Imaginary_

AN ALLEGORY

    On the wide level of a mountain’s head
    (I knew not where, but ’twas some faery place),
    Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,
    Two lovely children run an endless race,
          A sister and a brother!
          This far outstripp’d the other;
      Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
      And looks and listens for the boy behind:
          For he, alas! is blind!
    O’er rough and smooth with even step he pass’d,
    And knows not whether he be first or last.


_554._ _Work without Hope_

    All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair--
    The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--
    And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
    Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
    And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
    Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

    Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
    Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
    Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
    For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
    With lips unbrighten’d, wreathless brow, I stroll:
    And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
    Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
    And Hope without an object cannot live.


_555._ _Glycine’s Song_

    A sunny shaft did I behold,
      From sky to earth it slanted:
    And poised therein a bird so bold--
      Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!

    He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he troll’d
      Within that shaft of sunny mist;
    His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,
      All else of amethyst!

    And thus he sang: ‘Adieu! adieu!
    Love’s dreams prove seldom true.
    The blossoms, they make no delay:
    The sparking dew-drops will not stay.
        Sweet month of May,
          We must away;
          Far, far away!
            To-day! to-day!’




ROBERT SOUTHEY

1774-1843


_556._ _His Books_

    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.




WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1775-1864


_557._ _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, O, pray too for me!


_558._ _Rose Aylmer_

    Ah, what avails the sceptred race!
      Ah, what the form divine!
    What every virtue, every grace!
      Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

    Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
      May weep, but never see,
    A night of memories and sighs
      I consecrate to thee.


_559._ _Ianthe_

    From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass
      Like little ripples down a sunny river;
    Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass,
      Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever.


_560._ _Twenty Years hence_

    Twenty years hence my eyes may grow,
    If not quite dim, yet rather so;
    Yet yours from others they shall know,
                    Twenty years hence.

    Twenty years hence, though it may hap
    That I be call’d to take a nap
    In a cool cell where thunder-clap
                    Was never heard,

    There breathe but o’er my arch of grass
    A not too sadly sigh’d ‘Alas!’
    And I shall catch, ere you can pass,
                    That wingèd word.


_561._ _Verse_

    Past ruin’d Ilion Helen lives,
      Alcestis rises from the shades;
    Verse calls them forth; ’tis verse that gives
      Immortal youth to mortal maids.

    Soon shall Oblivion’s deepening veil
      Hide all the peopled hills you see,
    The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
      These many summers you and me.


_562._ _Proud Word you never spoke_

    Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak
      Four not exempt from pride some future day.
    Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
      Over my open volume you will say,
      ‘This man loved me’--then rise and trip away.


_563._ _Resignation_

    Why, why repine, my pensive friend,
      At pleasures slipp’d away?
    Some the stern Fates will never lend,
      And all refuse to stay.

    I see the rainbow in the sky,
      The dew upon the grass;
    I see them, and I ask not why
      They glimmer or they pass.

    With folded arms I linger not
      To call them back; ’twere vain:
    In this, or in some other spot,
      I know they’ll shine again.


_564._ _Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel_

    Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
      My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
    O, if you felt the pain I feel!
      But O, who ever felt as I?

    No longer could I doubt him true--
      All other men may use deceit;
    He always said my eyes were blue,
      And often swore my lips were sweet.


_565._ _Autumn_

    Mild is the parting year, and sweet
      The odour of the falling spray;
    Life passes on more rudely fleet,
      And balmless is its closing day.

    I wait its close, I court its gloom,
      But mourn that never must there fall
    Or on my breast or on my tomb
      The tear that would have soothed it all.


_566._ _Remain!_

    Remain, ah not in youth alone!
    --Tho’ youth, where you are, long will stay--
    But when my summer days are gone,
      And my autumnal haste away.
    ‘_Can I be always by your side?_’
      No; but the hours you can, you must,
    Nor rise at Death’s approaching stride,
      Nor go when dust is gone to dust.


_567._ _Absence_

    Here, ever since you went abroad,
      If there be change, no change I see:
    I only walk our wonted road,
      The road is only walk’d by me.

    Yes; I forgot; a change there is--
      Was it of _that_ you bade me tell?
    I catch at times, at times I miss
      The sight, the tone, I know so well.


    Only two months since you stood here?
      Two shortest months? Then tell me why
    Voices are harsher than they were,
      And tears are longer ere they dry.


_568._ _Of Clementina_

    In Clementina’s artless mien
      Lucilla asks me what I see,
    And are the roses of sixteen
                  Enough for me?

    Lucilla asks, if that be all,
      Have I not cull’d as sweet before:
    Ah yes, Lucilla! and their fall
                  I still deplore.

    I now behold another scene,
      Where Pleasure beams with Heaven’s own light,
    More pure, more constant, more serene,
                  And not less bright.

    Faith, on whose breast the Loves repose,
      Whose chain of flowers no force can sever,
    And Modesty who, when she goes,
                  Is gone for ever.


_569._ _Ianthe’s Question_

    ‘Do you remember me? or are you proud?’
    Lightly advancing thro’ her star-trimm’d crowd,
      Ianthe said, and look’d into my eyes.
    ‘A _yes_, a _yes_ to both: for Memory
    Where you but once have been must ever be,
      And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise.’


_570._ _On Catullus_

    Tell me not what too well I know
    About the bard of Sirmio.
      Yes, in Thalia’s son
    Such stains there are--as when a Grace
    Sprinkles another’s laughing face
      With nectar, and runs on.


_571._ _Dirce_

    Stand close around, ye Stygian set,
      With Dirce in one boat convey’d!
    Or Charon, seeing, may forget
      That he is old and she a shade.


_572._ _Alciphron and Leucippe_

    An ancient chestnut’s blossoms threw
    Their heavy odour over two:
    Leucippe, it is said, was one;
    The other, then, was Alciphron.
    ‘Come, come! why should we stand beneath
    This hollow tree’s unwholesome breath?’
    Said Alciphron, ‘here’s not a blade
    Of grass or moss, and scanty shade.
    Come; it is just the hour to rove
    In the lone dingle shepherds love;
    There, straight and tall, the hazel twig
    Divides the crookèd rock-held fig,
    O’er the blue pebbles where the rill
    In winter runs and may run still.
    Come then, while fresh and calm the air,
    And while the shepherds are not there.’

    _Leucippe._ But I would rather go when they
                Sit round about and sing and play.
                Then why so hurry me? for you
                Like play and song, and shepherds too.

    _Alciphron._ I like the shepherds very well,
                And song and play, as you can tell.
                But there is play, I sadly fear,
                And song I would not have you hear.

    _Leucippe._ What can it be? What can it be?

    _Alciphron._ To you may none of them repeat
                The play that you have play’d with me,
                The song that made your bosom beat.

    _Leucippe._ Don’t keep your arm about my waist.

    _Alciphron._ Might you not stumble?

    _Leucippe._ Well then, do.
                But why are we in all this haste?

    _Alciphron._ To sing.

    _Leucippe._ Alas! and not play too?


_573._ _Years_

    Years, many parti-colour’d years,
      Some have crept on, and some have flown
    Since first before me fell those tears
      I never could see fall alone.

    Years, not so many, are to come,
      Years not so varied, when from you
    One more will fall: when, carried home,
      I see it not, nor hear Adieu.


_574._ _Separation_

    There is a mountain and a wood between us,
    Where the lone shepherd and late bird have seen us
      Morning and noon and eventide repass.
    Between us now the mountain and the wood
    Seem standing darker than last year they stood,
      And say we must not cross--alas! alas!


_575._ _Late Leaves_

    The leaves are falling; so am I;
    The few late flowers have moisture in the eye;
      So have I too.
    Scarcely on any bough is heard
    Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird
        The whole wood through.

    Winter may come: he brings but nigher
    His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire
        Where old friends meet.
    Let him; now heaven is overcast,
    And spring and summer both are past,
        And all things sweet.


_576._ _Finis_

    I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.
    Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art:
    I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;
    It sinks, and I am ready to depart.




CHARLES LAMB

1775-1834


_577._ _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 loved a Love once, fairest among women:
    Closed 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 paced 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 wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling?
    So might we talk of the old familiar faces--

    How 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.


_578._ _Hester_

    When maidens such as Hester die
    Their place ye may not well supply,
    Though ye among a thousand try
          With vain endeavour.

    A month or more hath she been dead,
    Yet cannot I by force be led
    To think upon the wormy bed
          And her together.

    A springy motion in her gait,
    A rising step, did indicate
    Of pride and joy no common rate,
          That flush’d her spirit:

    I know not by what name beside
    I shall it call: if ’twas not pride,
    It was a joy to that allied,
          She did inherit.

    Her parents held the Quaker rule,
    Which doth the human feeling cool;
    But she was train’d in Nature’s school;
          Nature had blest her.

    A waking eye, a prying mind;
    A heart that stirs, is hard to bind;
    A hawk’s keen sight ye cannot blind;
          Ye could not Hester.

    My sprightly neighbour! gone before
    To that unknown and silent shore,
    Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
          Some summer morning--

    When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
    Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
    A bliss that would not go away,
          A sweet forewarning?


_579._ _On an Infant dying as soon as born_

    I saw where in the shroud did lurk
    A curious frame of Nature’s work;
    A floweret crush’d in the bud,
    A nameless piece of Babyhood,
    Was in her cradle-coffin lying;
    Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:
    So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
    For darker closets of the tomb!
    She did but ope an eye, and put
    A clear beam forth, then straight up shut
    For the long dark: ne’er more to see
    Through glasses of mortality.
      Riddle of destiny, who can show
    What thy short visit meant, or know
    What thy errand here below?
    Shall we say that Nature blind
    Check’d her hand, and changed her mind,
    Just when she had exactly wrought
    A finish’d pattern without fault?
    Could she flag, or could she tire,
    Or lack’d she the Promethean fire
    (With her nine moons’ long workings sicken’d)
    That should thy little limbs have quicken’d?
    Limbs so firm, they seem’d to assure
    Life of health, and days mature:
    Woman’s self in miniature!
    Limbs so fair, they might supply
    (Themselves now but cold imagery)
    The sculptor to make Beauty by.
    Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry
    That babe or mother, one must die;
    So in mercy left the stock
    And cut the branch; to save the shock
    Of young years widow’d, and the pain
    When single state comes back again
    To the lone man who, reft of wife,
    Thenceforward drags a maimèd life?
    The economy of Heaven is dark,
    And wisest clerks have miss’d the mark,
    Why human buds, like this, should fall,
    More brief than fly ephemeral
    That has his day; while shrivell’d crones
    Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
    And crabbèd use the conscience sears
    In sinners of an hundred years.
      Mother’s prattle, mother’s kiss,
    Baby fond, thou ne’er wilt miss:
    Rites, which custom does impose,
    Silver bells, and baby clothes;
    Coral redder than those lips
    Which pale death did late eclipse;
    Music framed for infants’ glee,
    Whistle never tuned for thee;
    Though thou want’st not, thou shalt have them,
    Loving hearts were they which gave them.
    Let not one be missing; nurse,
    See them laid upon the hearse
    Of infant slain by doom perverse.
    Why should kings and nobles have
    Pictured trophies to their grave,
    And we, churls, to thee deny
    Thy pretty toys with thee to lie--
    A more harmless vanity?




THOMAS CAMPBELL

1774-1844


_580._ _Ye Mariners of England_

    Ye Mariners of England
      That guard our native seas!
    Whose flag has braved a thousand years
      The battle and the breeze!
    Your glorious standard launch again
      To match another foe;
    And sweep through the deep,
      While the stormy winds do blow!
    While the battle rages loud and long
      And the stormy winds do blow.

    The spirits of your fathers
      Shall start from every wave--
    For the deck it was their field of fame,
      And Ocean was their grave:
    Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
      Your manly hearts shall glow,
    As ye sweep through the deep,
      While the stormy winds do blow!
    While the battle rages loud and long
      And the stormy winds do blow.

    Britannia needs no bulwarks,
      No towers along the steep;
    Her march is o’er the mountain-waves,
      Her home is on the deep.
    With thunders from her native oak
      She quells the floods below,
    As they roar on the shore,
      When the stormy winds do blow!
    When the battle rages loud and long,
      And the stormy winds do blow.

    The meteor flag of England
      Shall yet terrific burn;
    Till danger’s troubled night depart
      And the star of peace return.
    Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
      Our song and feast shall flow
    To the fame of your name,
      When the storm has ceased to blow!
    When the fiery fight is heard no more,
      And the storm has ceased to blow.


_581._ _The Battle of the Baltic_

    Of Nelson and the North
    Sing the glorious day’s renown,
    When to battle fierce came forth
    All the might of Denmark's crown,
    And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
    By each gun the lighted brand
    In a bold determined hand,
    And the Prince of all the land
    Led them on.

    Like leviathans afloat
    Lay their bulwarks on the brine,
    While the sign of battle flew
    On the lofty British line:
    It was ten of April morn by the chime:
    As they drifted on their path
    There was silence deep as death,
    And the boldest held his breath
    For a time.

    But the might of England flush'd
    To anticipate the scene;
    And her van the fleeter rush'd
    O’er the deadly space between:
    ‘Hearts of oak!’ our captains cried, when each gun
    From its adamantine lips
    Spread a death-shade round the ships,
    Like the hurricane eclipse
    Of the sun.

    Again! again! again!
    And the havoc did not slack,
    Till a feeble cheer the Dane
    To our cheering sent us back;--
    Their shots along the deep slowly boom:--
    Then ceased--and all is wail,
    As they strike the shattered sail,
    Or in conflagration pale
    Light the gloom.

    Out spoke the victor then
    As he hail'd them o'er the wave:
    ‘Ye are brothers! ye are men!
    And we conquer but to save:--

    So peace instead of death let us bring
    But yield, proud foe, thy fleet,
    With the crews, at England’s feet,
    And make submission meet
    To our King.’...

    Now joy, old England, raise!
    For the tidings of thy might,
    By the festal cities’ blaze,
    Whilst the wine-cup shines in light!
    And yet amidst that joy and uproar,
    Let us think of them that sleep
    Full many a fathom deep,
    By thy wild and stormy steep,
    Elsinore!




THOMAS MOORE

1779-1852


_582._ _The Young May Moon_

    The young May moon is beaming, love,
    The glow-worm’s lamp is gleaming, love;
            How sweet to rove
            Through Morna’s grove,
    When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
    Then awake!--the heavens look bright, my dear,
    ’Tis never too late for delight, my dear;
            And the best of all ways
            To lengthen our days
    Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!

    Now all the world is sleeping, love,
    But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love,
            And I, whose star
            More glorious far
    Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
    Then awake!--till rise of sun, my dear,
    The Sage’s glass we’ll shun, my dear,
            Or in watching the flight
            Of bodies of light
    He might happen to take thee for one, my dear!


_583._ _The Irish Peasant to His Mistress_

    Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheer’d my way,
    Till hope seem’d to bud from each thorn that round me lay;
    The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burn’d,
    Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turn’d:
    Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free,
    And bless’d even the sorrows that made me more dear to thee.

    Thy rival was honour’d, while thou wert wrong’d and scorn’d;
    Thy crown was of briers, while gold her brows adorn’d;
    She woo’d me to temples, whilst thou lay’st hid in caves;
    Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas! were slaves;
    Yet cold in the earth, at thy feet, I would rather be
    Than wed what I loved not, or turn one thought from thee.

    They slander thee sorely, who say thy vows are frail--
    Hadst thou been a false one, thy cheek had look’d less pale!
    They say, too, so long thou hast worn those lingering chains,
    That deep in thy heart they have printed their servile stains:
    O, foul is the slander!--no chain could that soul subdue--
    Where shineth thy spirit, there Liberty shineth too!


_584._ _The Light of Other Days_

    Oft, in the stilly night,
      Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
    Fond Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me:
        The smiles, the tears
        Of boyhood’s years,
      The words of love then spoken;
        The eyes that shone,
        Now dimm’d and gone,
      The cheerful hearts now broken!
    Thus, in the stilly night,
      Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
    Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.

    When I remember all
      The friends, so link’d together,
    I’ve seen around me fall
      Like leaves in wintry weather,
        I feel like one
        Who treads alone
      Some banquet-hall deserted,
        Whose lights are fled,
        Whose garlands dead,
      And all but he departed!
    Thus, in the stilly night,
      Ere slumber’s chain has bound me.
    Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.


_585._ _At the Mid Hour of Night_

    At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
    To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
      And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air
      To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
    And tell me our love is remembered even in the sky.

    Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear,
    When our voices commingling breathed like one on the ear;
      And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
      I think, O my love! ’tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls
    Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.




EDWARD THURLOW, LORD THURLOW

1781-1829


_586._ _May_

    May! queen of blossoms,
      And fulfilling flowers,
    With what pretty music
      Shall we charm the hours?
    Wilt thou have pipe and reed,
    Blown in the open mead?
    Or to the lute give heed
      In the green bowers?

    Thou hast no need of us,
      Or pipe or wire;
    Thou hast the golden bee
      Ripen’d with fire;
    And many thousand more
    Songsters, that thee adore,
    Filling earth’s grassy floor
      With new desire.

    Thou hast thy mighty herds,
      Tame and free-livers;
    Doubt not, thy music too
      In the deep rivers;
    And the whole plumy flight
    Warbling the day and night--
    Up at the gates of light,
      See, the lark quivers!


EBENEZER ELLIOTT

1781-1849


_587._ _Battle Song_

    Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark;
            What then? ’Tis day!
    We sleep no more; the cock crows--hark!
            To arms! away!
    They come! they come! the knell is rung
            Of us or them;
    Wide o’er their march the pomp is flung
            Of gold and gem.
    What collar’d hound of lawless sway,
            To famine dear--
    What pensioned slave of Attila,
            Leads in the rear?
    Come they from Scythian wilds afar,
            Our blood to spill?
    Wear they the livery of the Czar?
            They do his will.
    Nor tassell’d silk, nor epaulet,
              Nor plume, nor torse--
    No splendour gilds, all sternly met,
              Our foot and horse.
    But, dark and still, we inly glow,
              Condensed in ire!
    Strike, tawdry slaves, and ye shall know
              Our gloom is fire.
    In vain your pomp, ye evil powers,
              Insults the land;
    Wrongs, vengeance, and the Cause are ours,
              And God’s right hand!
    Madmen! they trample into snakes
              The wormy clod!
    Like fire, beneath their feet awakes
              The sword of God!
    Behind, before, above, below,
              They rouse the brave;
    Where’er they go, they make a foe,
              Or find a grave.


_588._ _Plaint_

    Dark, deep, and cold the current flows
    Unto the sea where no wind blows,
    Seeking the land which no one knows.

    O’er its sad gloom still comes and goes
    The mingled wail of friends and foes,
    Borne to the land which no one knows.

    Why shrieks for help yon wretch, who goes
    With millions, from a world of woes,
    Unto the land which no one knows?

    Though myriads go with him who goes,
    Alone he goes where no wind blows,
    Unto the land which no one knows.

    For all must go where no wind blows,
    And none can go for him who goes;
    None, none return whence no one knows.

    Yet why should he who shrieking goes
    With millions, from a world of woes,
    Reunion seek with it or those?

    Alone with God, where no wind blows,
    And Death, his shadow--doom’d, he goes.
    That God is there the shadow shows.

    O shoreless Deep, where no wind blows!
    And thou, O Land which no one knows!
    That God is All, His shadow shows.




ALLAN CUNNINGHAM

1784-1843


_589._ _The Sun rises bright in France_

    The sun rises bright in France,
      And fair sets he;
    But he has tint the blythe blink he had
      In my ain countree.

    O, it’s nae my ain ruin
      That saddens aye my e’e,
    But the dear Marie I left behin’
      Wi’ sweet bairnies three.

     _589._ tint] lost.

    My lanely hearth burn’d bonnie,
      And smiled my ain Marie;
    I’ve left a’ my heart behin’
      In my ain countree.

    The bud comes back to summer,
      And the blossom to the bee;
    But I’ll win back, O never,
      To my ain countree.

    O, I am leal to high Heaven,
      Where soon I hope to be,
    An’ there I’ll meet ye a’ soon
      Frae my ain countree!


_590._ _Hame, Hame, Hame_

    Hame, hame, hame, O hame fain wad I be--
      O hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree!

    When the flower is i’ the bud and the leaf is on the tree,
    The larks shall sing me hame in my ain countree;
    Hame, hame, hame, O hame fain wad I be--
    O hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree!

    The green leaf o’ loyaltie’s beginning for to fa’,
    The bonnie White Rose it is withering an’ a’;
    But I’ll water ’t wi’ the blude of usurping tyrannie,
    An’ green it will graw in my ain countree.

    O, there’s nocht now frae ruin my country can save,
    But the keys o’ kind heaven, to open the grave;
    That a’ the noble martyrs wha died for loyaltie
    May rise again an’ fight for their ain countree.

    The great now are gane, a’ wha ventured to save,
    The new grass is springing on the tap o’ their grave;
    But the sun through the mirk blinks blythe in my e’e,
    ‘I’ll shine on ye yet in your ain countree.’

    Hame, hame, hame, O hame fain wad I be--
    O hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree!


_591._ _The Spring of the Year_

    Gone were but the winter cold,
      And gone were but the snow,
    I could sleep in the wild woods
      Where primroses blow.

    Cold’s the snow at my head,
      And cold at my feet;
    And the finger of death’s at my e’en,
      Closing them to sleep.

    Let none tell my father
      Or my mother so dear,--
    I’ll meet them both in heaven
      At the spring of the year.




LEIGH HUNT

1784-1859


_592._ _Jenny kiss’d Me_

    Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
      Jumping from the chair she sat in;
    Time, you thief, who love to get
      Sweets into your list, put that in!
    Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
      Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
    Say I’m growing old, but add,
          Jenny kiss’d me.




THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

1785-1866


_593._ _Love and Age_

    I play’d with you ’mid cowslips blowing,
      When I was six and you were four;
    When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
      Were pleasures soon to please no more.
    Through groves and meads, o’er grass and heather,
      With little playmates, to and fro,
    We wander’d hand in hand together;
      But that was sixty years ago.

    You grew a lovely roseate maiden,
      And still our early love was strong;
    Still with no care our days were laden,
      They glided joyously along;
    And I did love you very dearly,
      How dearly words want power to show,
    I thought your heart was touch’d as nearly;
      But that was fifty years ago.

    Then other lovers came around you,
      Your beauty grew from year to year,
    And many a splendid circle found you
      The centre of its glittering sphere.
    I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
      On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
    O, then I thought my heart was breaking!--
      But that was forty years ago.

    And I lived on, to wed another:
      No cause she gave me to repine;
    And when I heard you were a mother,
      I did not wish the children mine.
    My own young flock, in fair progression,
      Made up a pleasant Christmas row:
    My joy in them was past expression;
      But that was thirty years ago.

    You grew a matron plump and comely,
      You dwelt in fashion’s brightest blaze;
    My earthly lot was far more homely;
      But I too had my festal days.
    No merrier eyes have ever glisten’d
      Around the hearth-stone’s wintry glow,
    Than when my youngest child was christen’d;
      But that was twenty years ago.

    Time pass’d. My eldest girl was married,
      And I am now a grandsire gray;
    One pet of four years old I’ve carried
      Among the wild-flower’d meads to play.
    In our old fields of childish pleasure,
      Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
    She fills her basket’s ample measure;
      And that is not ten years ago.

    But though first love’s impassion’d blindness
      Has pass’d away in colder light,
    I still have thought of you with kindness,
      And shall do, till our last good-night.
    The ever-rolling silent hours
      Will bring a time we shall not know,
    When our young days of gathering flowers
      Will be an hundred years ago.


_594._ _The Grave of Love_

    I dug, beneath the cypress shade,
      What well might seem an elfin’s grave;
    And every pledge in earth I laid,
      That erst thy false affection gave.

    I press’d them down the sod beneath;
      I placed one mossy stone above;
    And twined the rose’s fading wreath
      Around the sepulchre of love.

    Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead
      Ere yet the evening sun was set:
    But years shall see the cypress spread,
      Immutable as my regret.


_595._ _Three Men of Gotham_

    Seamen three! What men be ye?
    Gotham’s three wise men we be.
    Whither in your bowl so free?
    To rake the moon from out the sea.
    The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
    And our ballast is old wine.--
    And your ballast is old wine.

    Who art thou, so fast adrift?
    I am he they call Old Care.
    Here on board we will thee lift.
    No: I may not enter there.
    Wherefore so? ’Tis Jove’s decree,
    In a bowl Care may not be.--
    In a bowl Care may not be.

    Fear ye not the waves that roll?
    No: in charmèd bowl we swim.
    What the charm that floats the bowl?
    Water may not pass the brim.
    The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
    And our ballast is old wine.--
    And your ballast is old wine.




CAROLINE SOUTHEY

1787-1854


_596._ _To Death_

    Come not in terrors clad, to claim
        An unresisting prey:
    Come like an evening shadow, Death!
      So stealthily, so silently!
    And shut mine eyes, and steal my breath;
      Then willingly, O willingly,
        With thee I’ll go away!

    What need to clutch with iron grasp
        What gentlest touch may take?
    What need with aspect dark to scare,
      So awfully, so terribly,
    The weary soul would hardly care,
      Call’d quietly, call’d tenderly,
        From thy dread power to break?

    ’Tis not as when thou markest out
        The young, the blest, the gay,
    The loved, the loving--they who dream
      So happily, so hopefully;
    Then harsh thy kindest call may seem,
      And shrinkingly, reluctantly,
        The summon’d may obey.


    But I have drunk enough of life--
        The cup assign’d to me
    Dash’d with a little sweet at best,
      So scantily, so scantily--
    To know full well that all the rest
      More bitterly, more bitterly,
        Drugg’d to the last will be.

    And I may live to pain some heart
        That kindly cares for me:
    To pain, but not to bless. O Death!
      Come quietly--come lovingly--
    And shut mine eyes, and steal my breath;
      Then willingly, O willingly,
        I’ll go away with thee!




GEORGE GORDON BYRON, LORD BYRON

1788-1824

_597._ _When we Two parted_

    When we two parted
      In silence and tears,
    Half broken-hearted
      To sever for years,
    Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
      Colder thy kiss;
    Truly that hour foretold
      Sorrow to this.

    The dew of the morning
      Sunk chill on my brow--
    It felt like the warning
      Of what I feel now.
    Thy vows are all broken,
      And light is thy fame;
    I hear thy name spoken,
      And share in its shame.

    They name thee before me,
      A knell to mine ear;
    A shudder comes o’er me--
      Why wert thou so dear?
    They know not I knew thee,
      Who knew thee too well:
    Long, long shall I rue thee,
      Too deeply to tell.

    In secret we met--
      In silence I grieve,
    That thy heart could forget,
      Thy spirit deceive.
    If I should meet thee
      After long years,
    How should I greet thee?
      With silence and tears.


_598._ _For Music_

    There be none of Beauty’s daughters
      With a magic like thee;
    And like music on the waters
      Is thy sweet voice to me:
    When, as if its sound were causing
    The charmèd ocean’s pausing,
    The waves lie still and gleaming,
    And the lull’d winds seem dreaming:

    And the midnight moon is weaving
      Her bright chain o’er the deep;
    Whose breast is gently heaving,
      As an infant’s asleep:
    So the spirit bows before thee,
    To listen and adore thee;
    With a full but soft emotion,
    Like the swell of Summer’s ocean.


_599._ _We’ll go no more a-roving_

    So, we’ll go no more a-roving
      So late into the night,
    Though the heart be still as loving,
      And the moon be still as bright.

    For the sword outwears its sheath,
      And the soul wears out the breast,
    And the heart must pause to breathe,
      And love itself have rest.

    Though the night was made for loving,
      And the day returns too soon,
    Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
      By the light of the moon.


_600._ _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 mellow’d to that tender light
      Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

    One shade the more, one ray the less,
      Had half impair’d 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!


_601._ _The Isles of Greece_

    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 Phœbus 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 dream’d 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?

    ’Tis something in the dearth of fame,
      Though link’d among a fetter’d 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.

    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 Thermopylæ!

    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.

    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!

    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?

    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.

    The tyrant of the Chersonese
      Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;
    _That_ tyrant was Miltiades!
      O that the present hour would lend
    Another despot of the kind!
    Such chains as his were sure to bind.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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!




SIR AUBREY DE VERE

1788-1846


_602._ _The Children Band_

    All holy influences dwell within
      The breast of Childhood: instincts fresh from God
      Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod
    Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin.
    How mighty was that fervour which could win
      Its way to infant souls!--and was the sod
      Of Palestine by infant Croises trod?
    Like Joseph went they forth, or Benjamin,
    In all their touching beauty to redeem?
      And did their soft lips kiss the Sepulchre?
    Alas! the lovely pageant as a dream
      Faded! They sank not through ignoble fear;
    They felt not Moslem steel. By mountain, stream,
    In sands, in fens, they died--no mother near!




CHARLES WOLFE

1791-1823


_603._ _The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna_

    Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
      As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
    Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
      O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

    We buried him darkly at dead of night,
      The sods with our bayonets turning,
    By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light
      And the lanthorn dimly burning.

    No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
      Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
    But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
      With his martial cloak around him.

    Few and short were the prayers we said,
      And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
    But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
      And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

    We thought, as we hollow’d his narrow bed
      And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
    That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
      And we far away on the billow!

    Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone,
      And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him--
    But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on
      In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

    But half of our heavy task was done
      When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
    And we heard the distant and random gun
      That the foe was sullenly firing.

    Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
      From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
    We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
      But we left him alone with his glory.


_604._ _To Mary_

    If I had thought thou couldst have died,
        I might not weep for thee;
    But I forgot, when by thy side,
        That thou couldst mortal be:
    It never through my mind had past
        The time would e’er be o’er,
    And I on thee should look my last,
        And thou shouldst smile no more!

    And still upon that face I look,
        And think ’twill smile again;
    And still the thought I will not brook,
        That I must look in vain.
    But when I speak--thou dost not say
        What thou ne’er left’st unsaid;
    And now I feel, as well I may,
        Sweet Mary, thou art dead!

    If thou wouldst stay, e’en as thou art,
        All cold and all serene--
    I still might press thy silent heart,
        And where thy smiles have been.
    While e’en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
        Thou seemest still mine own;
    But there--I lay thee in thy grave,
        And I am now alone!

    I do not think, where’er thou art,
        Thou hast forgotten me;
    And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart
        In thinking too of thee:
    Yet there was round thee such a dawn
        Of light ne’er seen before,
    As fancy never could have drawn,
        And never can restore!




PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

1792-1822


_605._ _Hymn of Pan_

      From the forests and highlands
        We come, we come;
      From the river-girt islands,
        Where loud waves are dumb,
    Listening to my sweet pipings.
      The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
        The bees on the bells of thyme,
      The birds on the myrtle bushes,
        The cicale above in the lime,
    And the lizards below in the grass,
    Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
      Listening to my sweet pipings.

      Liquid Peneus was flowing,
        And all dark Tempe lay
      In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing
        The light of the dying day,
      Speeded by my sweet pipings.
        The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,
          And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
        To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
          And the brink of the dewy caves,
    And all that did then attend and follow,
    Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
      With envy of my sweet pipings.

      I sang of the dancing stars,
        I sang of the dædal earth,
      And of heaven, and the giant wars,
        And love, and death, and birth.
      And then I changed my pipings--
        Singing how down the vale of Mænalus
          I pursued a maiden, and clasp’d a reed:
        Gods and men, we are all deluded thus;
          It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.
    All wept--as I think both ye now would,
    If envy or age had not frozen your blood--
      At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.


_606._ _The Invitation_

    Best and brightest, come away!
    Fairer far than this fair Day,
    Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
    Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
    To the rough Year just awake
    In its cradle on the brake.
    The brightest hour of unborn Spring,
    Through the winter wandering,
    Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
    To hoar February born.
    Bending from heaven, in azure mirth,
    It kiss’d the forehead of the Earth;
    And smiled upon the silent sea;
    And bade the frozen streams be free;
    And waked to music all their fountains;
    And breathed upon the frozen mountains;
    And like a prophetess of May
    Strew’d flowers upon the barren way,
    Making the wintry world appear
    Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

    Away, away, from men and towns,
    To the wild wood and the downs--
    To the silent wilderness
    Where the soul need not repress
    Its music lest it should not find
    An echo in another’s mind,
    While the touch of Nature’s art
    Harmonizes heart to heart.
    I leave this notice on my door
    For each accustomed visitor:--
    ‘I am gone into the fields
    To take what this sweet hour yields.
    Reflection, you may come to-morrow;
    Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.
    You with the unpaid bill, Despair,--
    You tiresome verse-reciter, Care,--
    I will pay you in the grave,--
    Death will listen to your stave.
    Expectation too, be off!
    To-day is for itself enough.
    Hope, in pity, mock not Woe
    With smiles, nor follow where I go;
    Long having lived on your sweet food,
    At length I find one moment’s good
    After long pain: with all your love,
    This you never told me of.’

    Radiant Sister of the Day,
    Awake! arise! and come away!
    To the wild woods and the plains;
    And the pools where winter rains
    Image all their roof of leaves;
    Where the pine its garland weaves
    Of sapless green and ivy dun
    Round stems that never kiss the sun;
    Where the lawns and pastures be,
    And the sandhills of the sea;
    When the melting hoar-frost wets
    The daisy-star that never sets,
    And wind-flowers, and violets
    Which yet join not scent to hue,
    Crown the pale year weak and new;
    When the night is left behind
    In the deep east, dun and blind,
    And the blue noon is over us,
    And the multitudinous
    Billows murmur at our feet
    Where the earth and ocean meet,
    And all things seem only one
    In the universal sun.


_607._ _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 naught 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!


_608._ _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 light’ning
            Of the sunken sun,
          O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
            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 daylight
    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 overflow’d.

          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 aërial hue
    Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

          Like a rose embower’d
            In its own green leaves,
          By warm winds deflower’d,
            Till the scent it gives
    Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingèd thieves

          Sound of vernal showers
            On the twinkling grass,
          Rain-awaken’d 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 hymeneal,
            Or triumphal chant,
          Match’d 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.


_609._ _The Moon_

I

    And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
      Who totters forth, wrapp’d in a gauzy veil,
    Out of her chamber, led by the insane
    And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
    The moon arose up in the murky east
    A white and shapeless mass.

II

        Art thou pale for weariness
    Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
        Wandering companionless
    Among the stars that have a different birth,
    And ever changing, like a joyless eye
    That finds no object worth its constancy?


_610._ _Ode to the West Wind_


I

    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 wingèd 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 everywhere;
    Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!


II

    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 Mænad, 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!


III

    Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
      The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
    Lull’d by the coil of his crystàlline streams,

      Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ’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!


IV

    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 uncontrollable! 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 seem’d 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 bow’d
    One too like thee--tameless, and swift, and proud.


V

    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 wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth;
    And, by the incantation of this verse,

      Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth
    Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
      Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

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


_611._ _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 [pine]
      Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
    The nightingale’s complaint,
      It dies upon her heart,
    As I must on thine,
      O belovèd 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:
    O press it to thine own again,
      Where it will break at last!


_612._ _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 grey,
              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 turn’d to her rest,
    Lingering like an unloved guest,
              I sigh’d for thee.

    Thy brother Death came, and cried,
              ‘Wouldst thou me?’
    Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
    Murmur’d like a noontide 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, belovèd Night--
    Swift be thine approaching flight,
              Come soon, soon!


_613._ _From the Arabic_

AN IMITATION

    My faint spirit was sitting in the light
              Of thy looks, my love;
      It panted for thee like the hind at noon
              For the brooks, my love.
    Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest’s flight,
              Bore thee far from me;
      My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
              Did companion thee.

    Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
              Or the death they bear,
      The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
              With the wings of care;
    In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,
              Shall mine cling to thee,
      Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
              It may bring to thee.


_614._ _Lines_

      When the lamp is shatter’d,
    The light in the dust lies dead;
      When the cloud is scatter’d,
    The rainbow’s glory is shed:
      When the lute is broken,
    Sweet tones are remember’d not
      When the lips have spoken,
    Loved accents are soon forgot.

      As music and splendour
    Survive not the lamp and the lute,
      The heart’s echoes render
    No song when the spirit is mute--
      No song but sad dirges,
    Like the wind through a ruin’d cell,
      Or the mournful surges
    That ring the dead seaman’s knell.

      When hearts have once mingled,
    Love first leaves the well-built nest;
      The weak one is singled
    To endure what it once possest.
      O Love, who bewailest
    The frailty of all things here,
      Why choose you the frailest
    For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

      Its passions will rock thee,
    As the storms rock the ravens on high:
      Bright reason will mock thee,
    Like the sun from a wintry sky.
      From thy nest every rafter
    Will rot, and thine eagle home
      Leave thee naked to laughter,
    When leaves fall and cold winds come.


_615._ _To---- _

    One word is too often profaned
      For me to profane it;
    One feeling too falsely disdain’d
      For thee to disdain it;
    One hope is too like despair
      For prudence to smother;
    And pity from thee more dear
      Than that from another.


    I can give not what men call love:
      But wilt thou accept not
    The worship the heart lifts above
      And the heavens reject not,
    The desire of the moth for the star,
      Of the night for the morrow,
    The devotion to something afar
      From the sphere of our sorrow?


_616._ _The Question_

    I dream’d that, as I wander’d by the way,
      Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring;
    And gentle odours led my steps astray,
      Mix’d with a sound of waters murmuring
    Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
      Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
    Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
    But kiss’d it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

    There grew pied wind-flowers and violets;
      Daisies, those pearl’d Arcturi of the earth,
    The constellated flower that never sets;
      Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
    The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets--
      Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth--
    Its mother’s face with heaven-collected tears
    When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.

    And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
      Green cowbind and the moonlight-colour’d May,
    And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine
      Was the bright dew yet drain’d not by the day;
    And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
      With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray;
    And flowers, azure, black, and streak’d with gold,
    Fairer than any waken’d eyes behold.

    And nearer to the river’s trembling edge
      There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank’d with white,
    And starry river-buds among the sedge,
      And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
    Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
      With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
    And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
    As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

    Methought that of these visionary flowers
      I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
    That the same hues which in their natural bowers
      Were mingled or opposed, the like array
    Kept these imprison’d children of the Hours
      Within my hand;--and then, elate and gay,
    I hasten’d to the spot whence I had come,
    That I might there present it--O! to whom?


_617._ _Remorse_

    Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
      Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
    Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
      And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.

    Pause not! the time is past! Every voice cries ‘Away!’
      Tempt not with one last tear thy friend’s ungentle mood:
    Thy lover’s eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:
      Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

    Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;
      Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;
    Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
      And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.
    The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head,
      The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:
    But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead,
      Ere midnight’s frown and morning’s smile, ere thou and peace, may meet.

    The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose,
      For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep;
    Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows;
      Whatever moves or toils or grieves hath its appointed sleep.
    Thou in the grave shalt rest:--yet, till the phantoms flee,
      Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,
    Thy remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not free
      From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile.


_618._ _Music, when Soft Voices die_

    Music, when soft voices die,
    Vibrates in the memory;
    Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
    Live within the sense they quicken.

    Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
    Are heap’d for the belovèd’s bed;
    And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
    Love itself shall slumber on.




HEW AINSLIE

1792-1878


_619._ _Willie and Helen_

    ‘Wharefore sou’d ye talk o’ love,
      Unless it be to pain us?
    Wharefore sou’d ye talk o’ love
      Whan ye say the sea maun twain us?’

    ‘It’s no because my love is light,
      Nor for your angry deddy;
    It’s a’ to buy ye pearlins bright,
      An’ to busk ye like a leddy.’

    ‘O Willy, I can caird an’ spin,
      Se ne’er can want for cleedin’;
    An’ gin I hae my Willy’s heart,
      I hae a’ the pearls I’m heedin’.

    ‘Will it be time to praise this cheek
      Whan years an’ tears has blench’d it?
    Will it be time to talk o’ love
      Whan cauld an’ care has quench’d it?’

    He’s laid ae han’ about her waist--
      The ither’s held to heaven;
    An’ his luik was like the luik o’ man
      Wha’s heart in twa is riven.

     _619._ cleedin’] clothing.




JOHN KEBLE

1792-1866


_620._ _Burial of the Dead_

    I thought to meet no more, so dreary seem’d
    Death’s interposing veil, and thou so pure,
              Thy place in Paradise
              Beyond where I could soar:

    Friend of this worthless heart! but happier thoughts
    Spring like unbidden violets from the sod,
              Where patiently thou tak’st
              Thy sweet and sure repose.

    The shadows fall more soothing: the soft air
    Is full of cheering whispers like thine own;
              While Memory, by thy grave,
              Lives o’er thy funeral day;

    The deep knell dying down, the mourners’ pause,
    Waiting their Saviour’s welcome at the gate.--
              Sure with the words of Heaven
              Thy spirit met us there,

    And sought with us along th’ accustom’d way
    The hallow’d porch, and entering in, beheld
              The pageant of sad joy
              So dear to Faith and Hope.

    O! hadst thou brought a strain from Paradise
    To cheer us, happy soul, thou hadst not touch’d
              The sacred springs of grief
              More tenderly and true,
    Than those deep-warbled anthems, high and low,
    Low as the grave, high as th’ Eternal Throne,
              Guiding through light and gloom
              Our mourning fancies wild,

    Till gently, like soft golden clouds at eve
    Around the western twilight, all subside
              Into a placid faith,
              That even with beaming eye

    Counts thy sad honours, coffin, bier, and pall;
    So many relics of a frail love lost,
              So many tokens dear
              Of endless love begun.

    Listen! it is no dream: th’ Apostles’ trump
    Gives earnest of th’ Archangel’s;--calmly now,
              Our hearts yet beating high
              To that victorious lay

    (Most like a warrior’s, to the martial dirge
    Of a true comrade), in the grave we trust
              Our treasure for awhile:
              And if a tear steal down,

    If human anguish o’er the shaded brow
    Pass shuddering, when the handful of pure earth
              Touches the coffin-lid;
              If at our brother’s name,

    Once and again the thought, ‘for ever gone,’
    Come o’er us like a cloud; yet, gentle spright,
              Thou turnest not away,
              Thou know’st us calm at heart.

    One look, and we have seen our last of thee,
    Till we too sleep and our long sleep be o’er.
              O cleanse us, ere we view
              That countenance pure again,

    Thou, who canst change the heart, and raise the dead!
    As Thou art by to soothe our parting hour,
              Be ready when we meet,
              With Thy dear pardoning words.




JOHN CLARE

1793-1864


_621._ _Written in Northampton County Asylum_

    I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
      My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
    I am the self-consumer of my woes;
      They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
    Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
    And yet I am--I live--though I am toss’d

    Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
      Into the living sea of waking dream,
    Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
      But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
    And all that’s dear. Even those I loved the best
    Are strange--nay, they are stranger than the rest.

    I long for scenes where man has never trod--
      For scenes where woman never smiled or wept--
    There to abide with my Creator, God,
      And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
    Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,--
    The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.




FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS

1793-1835


_622._ _Dirge_

    Calm on the bosom of thy God,
      Fair spirit, rest thee now!
    E’en while with ours thy footsteps trod,
      His seal was on thy brow.

    Dust, to its narrow house beneath!
      Soul, to its place on high!
    They that have seen thy look in death
      No more may fear to die.




JOHN KEATS

1795-1821


_623._ _Song of the Indian Maid_

FROM ‘ENDYMION’

          O Sorrow!
          Why dost borrow
    The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?--
          To give maiden blushes
          To the white rose bushes?
    Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?

          O Sorrow!
          Why dost borrow
    The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?--
          To give the glow-worm light?
          Or, on a moonless night,
    To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea-spry?

     _623._ sea-spry] sea-spray.


            O Sorrow!
            Why dost borrow
      The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?--
            To give at evening pale
            Unto the nightingale,
      That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?

            O Sorrow!
            Why dost borrow
      Heart’s lightness from the merriment of May?--
            A lover would not tread
            A cowslip on the head,
      Though he should dance from eve till peep of day--
            Nor any drooping flower
            Held sacred for thy bower,
      Wherever he may sport himself and play.

            To Sorrow
            I bade good morrow,
      And thought to leave her far away behind;
            But cheerly, cheerly,
            She loves me dearly;
      She is so constant to me, and so kind:
            I would deceive her,
            And so leave her,
      But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

    Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
    I sat a-weeping: in the whole world wide
    There was no one to ask me why I wept,--
            And so I kept
    Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
            Cold as my fears.
    Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
    I sat a-weeping: what enamour’d bride,
    Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds,
            But hides and shrouds
    Beneath dark palm-trees by a river side?

    And as I sat, over the light blue hills
    There came a noise of revellers: the rills
    Into the wide stream came of purple hue--
            ’Twas Bacchus and his crew!
    The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills
    From kissing cymbals made a merry din--
            ’Twas Bacchus and his kin!
    Like to a moving vintage down they came,
    Crown’d with green leaves, and faces all on flame;
    All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,
            To scare thee, Melancholy!
    O then, O then, thou wast a simple name!
    And I forgot thee, as the berried holly
    By shepherds is forgotten, when in June
    Tall chestnuts keep away the sun and moon:--
            I rush’d into the folly!

    Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,
    Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood,
            With sidelong laughing;
    And little rills of crimson wine imbrued
    His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white
            For Venus’ pearly bite;
    And near him rode Silenus on his ass,
    Pelted with flowers as he on did pass
            Tipsily quaffing.

    ‘Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye,
    So many, and so many, and such glee?
    Why have ye left your bowers desolate,
            Your lutes, and gentler fate?’--
    ‘We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing,
            A-conquering!
    Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,
    We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide:--
    Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be
            To our wild minstrelsy!’

    ‘Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye,
    So many, and so many, and such glee?
    Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left
            Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?’--
    ‘For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;
    For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,
            And cold mushrooms;
    For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth;
    Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth!
    Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be
            To our mad minstrelsy!’

    Over wide streams and mountains great we went,
    And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent,
    Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,
            With Asian elephants:
    Onward these myriads--with song and dance,
    With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians’ prance,
    Web-footed alligators, crocodiles,
    Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files,
    Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil
    Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers’ toil:
    With toying oars and silken sails they glide,
            Nor care for wind and tide.

    Mounted on panthers’ furs and lions’ manes,
    From rear to van they scour about the plains;
    A three days’ journey in a moment done;
    And always, at the rising of the sun,
    About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn,
            On spleenful unicorn.

    I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown
            Before the vine-wreath crown!
    I saw parch’d Abyssinia rouse and sing
            To the silver cymbals’ ring!
    I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce
            Old Tartary the fierce!
    The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
    And from their treasures scatter pearlèd hail;
    Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
            And all his priesthood moans,
    Before young Bacchus’ eye-wink turning pale.
    Into these regions came I, following him,
    Sick-hearted, weary--so I took a whim
    To stray away into these forests drear,
            Alone, without a peer:
    And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.

            Young Stranger!
            I’ve been a ranger
      In search of pleasure throughout every clime;
            Alas! ’tis not for me!
            Bewitch’d I sure must be,
      To lose in grieving all my maiden prime.

            Come then, Sorrow,
            Sweetest Sorrow!
      Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast:
            I thought to leave thee,
            And deceive thee,
      But now of all the world I love thee best.

            There is not one,
            No, no, not one
      But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid;
            Thou art her mother,
            And her brother,
      Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade.


_624._ _Ode to a Nightingale_

    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 thy happiness,
        That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
              In some melodious plot
      Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
        Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

    O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
      Cool’d a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
    Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
      Dance, and Provençal 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-stainèd mouth;
      That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
      And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

    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 grey hairs,
      Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
        Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
              And leaden-eyed despairs;
      Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
        Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

    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.

    I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
      Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
    But, in embalmèd 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.

    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 musèd 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.

    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 ofttimes hath
      Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
        Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

    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 famed 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?


_625._ _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-fringed 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, unwearièd,
      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 its 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.’


_626._ _Ode to Psyche_

    O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
      By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
    And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
      Even into thine own soft-conchèd ear:
    Surely I dream’d to-day, or did I see
      The wingèd Psyche with awaken’d eyes?
    I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly,
      And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
    Saw two fair creatures, couchèd side by side
      In deepest grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof
      Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
              A brooklet, scarce espied:
    ’Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed,
      Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian
    They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
      Their arms embracèd, and their pinions too;
      Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu,
    As if disjoinèd by soft-handed slumber,
    And ready still past kisses to outnumber
      At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
              The wingèd boy I knew;
      But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
              His Psyche true!

    O latest-born and loveliest vision far
      Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy!
    Fairer than Phœbe’s sapphire-region’d star,
      Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
    Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
              Nor altar heap’d with flowers;
    Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan
              Upon the midnight hours;
    No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
      From chain-swung censer teeming;
    No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
      Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.

    O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
      Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
    When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
      Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
    Yet even in these days so far retired
      From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
      Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
    I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
    So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
              Upon the midnight hours;
    Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
      From swingèd censer teeming:
    Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
      Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.

    Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
      In some untrodden region of my mind,
    Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
      Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
    Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees
      Fledge the wild-ridgèd mountains steep by steep;
    And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
      The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep;
    And in the midst of this wide quietness
    A rosy sanctuary will I dress
    With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,
      With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
    With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,
      Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
    And there shall be for thee all soft delight
      That shadowy thought can win,
    A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
      To let the warm Love in!


_627._ _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-eaves 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,
      Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
        Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
      Steady thy laden head across a brook;
      Or by a cider-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 barrèd 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 redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
        And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


_628._ _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 kist
      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 globèd 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.


_629._ _Fragment of an Ode to Maia_

(_Written on May-Day, 1818_)

    Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
            May I sing to thee
    As thou wast hymnèd on the shores of Baiæ?
            Or may I woo thee
    In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
    Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
    By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
      Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
    O give me their old vigour! and unheard
      Save of the quiet primrose, and the span
            Of heaven, and few ears,
    Rounded by thee, my song should die away
            Content as theirs,
    Rich in the simple worship of a day.


_630._ _Bards of Passion and of Mirth_

_Written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher’s Tragi-Comedy
‘The Fair Maid of the Inn’_

      Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
    Ye have left your souls on earth!
    Have ye souls in heaven too,
    Doubled-lived in regions new?
    Yes, and those of heaven commune
    With the spheres of sun and moon;
    With the noise of fountains wondrous,
    And the parle of voices thund’rous;
    With the whisper of heaven’s trees
    And one another, in soft ease
    Seated on Elysian lawns
    Browsed by none but Dian’s fawns;
    Underneath large blue-bells tented,
    Where the daisies are rose-scented,
    And the rose herself has got
    Perfume which on earth is not;
    Where the nightingale doth sing
    Not a senseless, trancèd thing,
    But divine melodious truth;
    Philosophic numbers smooth;
    Tales and golden histories
    Of heaven and its mysteries.

      Thus ye live on high, and then
    On the earth ye live again;
    And the souls ye left behind you
    Teach us, here, the way to find you,
    Where your other souls are joying,
    Never slumber’d, never cloying.
    Here, your earth-born souls still speak
    To mortals, of their little week;
    Of their sorrows and delights;
    Of their passions and their spites;
    Of their glory and their shame;
    What doth strengthen and what maim.
    Thus ye teach us, every day,
    Wisdom, though fled far away.

      Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
    Ye have left your souls on earth!
    Ye have souls in heaven too,
    Double-lived in regions new!


_631._ _Fancy_

    Ever let the Fancy roam,
    Pleasure never is at home:
    At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
    Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
    Then let wingèd Fancy wander
    Through the thought still spread beyond her:
    Open wide the mind’s cage-door,
    She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
    O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
    Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
    And the enjoying of the Spring
    Fades as does its blossoming:
    Autumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too,
    Blushing through the mist and dew,
    Cloys with tasting: What do then?
    Sit thee by the ingle, when
    The sear faggot blazes bright,
    Spirit of a winter’s night;
    When the soundless earth is muffled,
    And the cakèd snow is shuffled
    From the ploughboy’s heavy shoon;
    When the Night doth meet the Noon
    In a dark conspiracy
    To banish Even from her sky.
    Sit thee there, and send abroad,
    With a mind self-overawed,
    Fancy, high-commission’d:--send her!
    She has vassals to attend her:
    She will bring, in spite of frost,
    Beauties that the earth hath lost;
    She will bring thee, all together,
    All delights of summer weather;
    All the buds and bells of May,
    From dewy sward or thorny spray;
    All the heapèd Autumn’s wealth,
    With a still, mysterious stealth:
    She will mix these pleasures up
    Like three fit wines in a cup,
    And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear
    Distant harvest-carols clear;
    Rustle of the reapèd corn;
    Sweet birds antheming the morn:
    And, in the same moment--hark!
    ’Tis the early April lark,
    Or the rooks, with busy caw,
    Foraging for sticks and straw.
    Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
    The daisy and the marigold;
    White-plumed lilies, and the first
    Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
    Shaded hyacinth, alway
    Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
    And every leaf, and every flower
    Pearlèd with the self-same shower.
    Thou shalt see the fieldmouse peep
    Meagre from its cellèd sleep;
    And the snake all winter-thin
    Cast on sunny bank its skin;
    Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
    Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
    When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest
    Quiet on her mossy nest;
    Then the hurry and alarm
    When the beehive casts its swarm;
    Acorns ripe down-pattering
    While the autumn breezes sing.

      O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
    Every thing is spoilt by use:
    Where’s the cheek that doth not fade,
    Too much gazed at? Where’s the maid
    Whose lip mature is ever new?
    Where’s the eye, however blue,
    Doth not weary? Where’s the face
    One would meet in every place?
    Where’s the voice, however soft,
    One would hear so very oft?
    At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
    Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
    Let, then, wingèd Fancy find
    Thee a mistress to thy mind:
    Dulcet-eyed as Ceres’ daughter,
    Ere the God of Torment taught her
    How to frown and how to chide;
    With a waist and with a side
    White as Hebe’s, when her zone
    Slipt its golden clasp, and down
    Fell her kirtle to her feet,
    While she held the goblet sweet,
    And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh
    Of the Fancy’s silken leash;
    Quickly break her prison-string,
    And such joys as these she’ll bring.--
    Let the wingèd Fancy roam,
    Pleasure never is at home.


_632._ _Stanzas_

    In a drear-nighted December,
      Too happy, happy tree,
    Thy branches ne’er remember
      Their green felicity:
    The north cannot undo them,
    With a sleety whistle through them;
    Nor frozen thawings glue them
      From budding at the prime.

    In a drear-nighted December,
      Too happy, happy brook,
    Thy bubblings ne’er remember
      Apollo’s summer look;
    But with a sweet forgetting,
    They stay their crystal fretting,
    Never, never petting
      About the frozen time.

    Ah! would ’twere so with many
      A gentle girl and boy!
    But were there ever any
      Writhed not at passèd joy?
    To know the change and feel it,
    When there is none to heal it,
    Nor numbèd sense to steal it,
      Was never said in rhyme.


_633._ _La Belle Dame sans Merci_

    ‘O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
      Alone and palely loitering?
    The sedge is wither’d from the lake,
          And no birds sing.

    ‘O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
      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 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.

    ‘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.

    ‘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 wept and sigh’d full sore;
    And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
          With kisses four.

    ‘And there she lullèd me asleep,
      And there I dream’d--Ah! woe betide!
    The latest dream I ever dream’d
          On the cold hill’s side.

    ‘I saw pale kings and princes too,
      Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
    Who cried--“La belle Dame sans Merci
          Hath thee in thrall!”

    ‘I saw their starved lips in the gloam
      With horrid warning gapèd wide,
    And I awoke and found me here
          On the cold hill’s side.

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


_634._ _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 ruled 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 stared at the Pacific--and all his men
    Look’d at each other with a wild surmise--
      Silent, upon a peak in Darien.


_635._ _When I have Fears that I may cease to be_

    When I have fears that I may cease to be
    Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
    Before high-pilèd books, in charact’ry,
    Hold like full garners the full-ripen’d grain;
    When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
    And feel 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.


_636._ _To Sleep_

    O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
      Shutting with careful fingers and benign
    Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light,
      Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
    O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
      In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
    Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
      Around my bed its lulling charities;
      Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
    Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
    Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
      Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
    Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
      And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.


_637._ _Last Sonnet_

    Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
    Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
    And watching, with eternal lids apart,
    Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
    The moving waters at their priest-like task
    Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
    Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
    Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
    No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
    Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
    To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
    Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
      Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
      And so live ever--or else swoon to death.




JEREMIAH JOSEPH CALLANAN

1795-1839


_638._ _The Outlaw of Loch Lene_

FROM THE IRISH

    O many a day have I made good ale in the glen,
    That came not of stream or malt, like the brewing of men:
    My bed was the ground; my roof, the green-wood above;
    And the wealth that I sought, one far kind glance from my Love.

    Alas! on that night when the horses I drove from the field,
    That I was not near from terror my angel to shield!
    She stretch’d forth her arms; her mantle she flung to the wind,
    And swam o’er Loch Lene, her outlaw’d lover to find.

    O would that a freezing sleet-wing’d tempest did sweep,
    And I and my love were alone, far off on the deep;
    I’d ask not a ship, or a bark, or a pinnace, to save--
    With her hand round my waist, I’d fear not the wind or the wave.

    ’Tis down by the lake where the wild tree fringes its sides,
    The maid of my heart, my fair one of Heaven resides:
    I think, as at eve she wanders its mazes among,
    The birds go to sleep by the sweet wild twist of her song.




WILLIAM SIDNEY WALKER

1795-1846


_639._

    Too solemn for day, too sweet for night,
      Come not in darkness, come not in light;
    But come in some twilight interim,
      When the gloom is soft, and the light is dim.




GEORGE DARLEY

1795-1846


_640._ _Song_

    Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,
      Lull’d by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;
    Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers
      Breathed to my sad lute ’mid the lonely air.

    Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming
      To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above:
    O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming,
      I too could glide to the bower of my love!

    Ah! where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her,
      Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay,
    Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her,
      To her lost mate’s call in the forests far away.

    Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever bearest,
      Still Heaven’s messenger of comfort to me--
    Come--this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest,
      Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of love for thee!


_641._ _To Helene_

_On a Gift-ring carelessly lost_

    I sent a ring--a little band
      Of emerald and ruby stone,
    And bade it, sparkling on thy hand,
      Tell thee sweet tales of one
        Whose constant memory
        Was full of loveliness, and thee.

    A shell was graven on its gold,--
      ’Twas Cupid fix’d without his wings--
    To Helene once it would have told
      More than was ever told by rings:
        But now all’s past and gone,
        Her love is buried with that stone.

    Thou shalt not see the tears that start
      From eyes by thoughts like these beguiled;
    Thou shalt not know the beating heart,
      Ever a victim and a child:
        Yet Helene, love, believe
        The heart that never could deceive.

    I’ll hear thy voice of melody
      In the sweet whispers of the air;
    I’ll see the brightness of thine eye
      In the blue evening’s dewy star;
        In crystal streams thy purity;
        And look on Heaven to look on thee.


_642._ _The Fallen Star_

    A star is gone! a star is gone!
      There is a blank in Heaven;
    One of the cherub choir has done
      His airy course this even.

    He sat upon the orb of fire
      That hung for ages there,
    And lent his music to the choir
      That haunts the nightly air.

    But when his thousand years are pass’d,
      With a cherubic sigh
    He vanish’d with his car at last,
      For even cherubs die!

    Hear how his angel-brothers mourn--
      The minstrels of the spheres--
    Each chiming sadly in his turn
      And dropping splendid tears.

    The planetary sisters all
      Join in the fatal song,
    And weep this hapless brother’s fall,
      Who sang with them so long.

    But deepest of the choral band
      The Lunar Spirit sings,
    And with a bass-according hand
      Sweeps all her sullen strings.

    From the deep chambers of the dome
      Where sleepless Uriel lies,
    His rude harmonic thunders come
      Mingled with mighty sighs.


    The thousand car-borne cherubim,
      The wandering eleven,
    All join to chant the dirge of him
      Who fell just now from Heaven.




HARTLEY COLERIDGE

1796-1849


_643._ _The Solitary-Hearted_

    She was a queen of noble Nature’s crowning,
    A smile of hers was like an act of grace;
    She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,
    Like daily beauties of the vulgar race:
    But if she smiled, a light was on her face,
    A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam
    Of peaceful radiance, silvering o’er the stream
    Of human thought with unabiding glory;
    Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream,
    A visitation, bright and transitory.

    But she is changed,--hath felt the touch of sorrow,
    No love hath she, no understanding friend;
    O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow
    What the poor niggard earth has not to lend;
    But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend.
    The tallest flower that skyward rears its head
    Grows from the common ground, and there must shed
    Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely,
    That they should find so base a bridal bed,
    Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely.

    She had a brother, and a tender father,
    And she was loved, but not as others are
    From whom we ask return of love,--but rather
    As one might love a dream; a phantom fair
    Of something exquisitely strange and rare,
    Which all were glad to look on, men and maids,
    Yet no one claim’d--as oft, in dewy glades,
    The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness,
    Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades;--
    The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.

    ’Tis vain to say--her worst of grief is only
    The common lot, which all the world have known;
    To her ’tis more, because her heart is lonely,
    And yet she hath no strength to stand alone,--
    Once she had playmates, fancies of her own,
    And she did love them. They are past away
    As Fairies vanish at the break of day;
    And like a spectre of an age departed,
    Or unsphered Angel wofully astray,
    She glides along--the solitary-hearted.


_644._ _Song_

    She is not fair to outward view
    As many maidens be,
    Her loveliness I never knew
      Until she smiled on me;
    O, then I saw her eye was bright,
    A well of love, a spring of light!

    But now her looks are coy and cold,
    To mine they ne’er reply,
    And yet I cease not to behold
      The love-light in her eye:
    Her very frowns are fairer far
    Than smiles of other maidens are.


_645._ _Early Death_

    She pass’d away like morning dew
      Before the sun was high;
    So brief her time, she scarcely knew
      The meaning of a sigh.

    As round the rose its soft perfume,
      Sweet love around her floated;
    Admired she grew--while mortal doom
      Crept on, unfear’d, unnoted.

    Love was her guardian Angel here,
      But Love to Death resign’d her;
    Tho’ Love was kind, why should we fear
      But holy Death is kinder?


_646._ _Friendship_

    When we were idlers with the loitering rills,
      The need of human love we little noted:
      Our love was nature; and the peace that floated
    On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
    To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:
      One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
      That, wisely doting, ask’d not why it doted,
    And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
    But now I find how dear thou wert to me;
      That man is more than half of nature’s treasure,
    Of that fair beauty which no eye can see,
      Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
      And now the streams may sing for others’ pleasure,
    The hills sleep on in their eternity.




THOMAS HOOD

1798-1845


_647._ _Autumn_

    I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
    Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
    To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
    Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
    Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;--
    Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
    With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
      Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

    Where are the songs of Summer?--With the sun,
    Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
    Till shade and silence waken up as one,
    And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
    Where are the merry birds?--Away, away,
    On panting wings through the inclement skies,
          Lest owls should prey
          Undazzled at noonday,
    And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

    Where are the blooms of Summer?--In the west,
    Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
    When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
    Like tearful Proserpine, snatch’d from her flow’rs
          To a most gloomy breast.
    Where is the pride of Summer,--the green prime,--
    The many, many leaves all twinkling?--Three
    On the moss’d elm; three on the naked lime
    Trembling,--and one upon the old oak-tree!
      Where is the Dryad’s immortality?--
    Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
    Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
      In the smooth holly’s green eternity.


    The squirrel gloats on his accomplished hoard,
    The ants have brimm’d their garners with ripe grain,
        And honey bees have stored
    The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;
    The swallows all have wing’d across the main;
    But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
        And sighs her tearful spells
    Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
          Alone, alone,
          Upon a mossy stone,
    She sits and reckons up the dead and gone
    With the last leaves for a love-rosary,
    Whilst all the wither’d world looks drearily,
    Like a dim picture of the drownèd past
    In the hush’d mind’s mysterious far away,
    Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
    Into that distance, gray upon the gray.

    O go and sit with her, and be o’ershaded
    Under the languid downfall of her hair:
    She wears a coronal of flowers faded
    Upon her forehead, and a face of care;--
    There is enough of wither’d everywhere
    To make her bower,--and enough of gloom;
    There is enough of sadness to invite,
    If only for the rose that died, whose doom
    Is Beauty’s,--she that with the living bloom
    Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
    There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
    Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,--
    Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;
    Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
    To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!


_648._ _Silence_

    There is a silence where hath been no sound,
      There is a silence where no sound may be,
      In the cold grave--under the deep, deep sea,
    Or in wide desert where no life is found,
    Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
      No voice is hush’d--no life treads silently,
      But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
    That never spoke, over the idle ground:
    But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
      Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
    Though the dun fox or wild hyæna calls,
      And owls, that flit continually between,
    Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan--
    There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.


_649._ _Death_

    It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
      This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
    That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
      In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
      That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
    And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow;
      That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
    Be lapp’d in alien clay and laid below;
    It is not death to know this--but to know
      That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
    In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
      So duly and so oft--and when grass waves
    Over the pass’d-away, there may be then
    No resurrection in the minds of men.


_650._ _Fair Ines_

    O saw ye not fair Ines?
      She’s gone into the West,
    To dazzle when the sun is down,
      And rob the world of rest:
    She took our daylight with her,
      The smiles that we love best,
    With morning blushes on her cheek,
      And pearls upon her breast.

    O turn again, fair Ines,
      Before the fall of night,
    For fear the Moon should shine alone,
      And stars unrivall’d bright;
    And blessèd will the lover be
      That walks beneath their light,
    And breathes the love against thy cheek
      I dare not even write!

    Would I had been, fair Ines,
      That gallant cavalier,
    Who rode so gaily by thy side,
      And whisper’d thee so near!
    Were there no bonny dames at home,
      Or no true lovers here,
    That he should cross the seas to win
      The dearest of the dear?

    I saw thee, lovely Ines,
      Descend along the shore,
    With bands of noble gentlemen,
      And banners waved before;
    And gentle youth and maidens gay,
      And snowy plumes they wore:
    It would have been a beauteous dream,--
      If it had been no more!

    Alas, alas! fair Ines,
      She went away with song,
    With Music waiting on her steps,
      And shoutings of the throng;
    But some were sad, and felt no mirth,
      But only Music’s wrong,
    In sounds that sang Farewell, farewell,
      To her you’ve loved so long.

    Farewell, farewell, fair Ines!
      That vessel never bore
    So fair a lady on its deck,
      Nor danced so light before,--
    Alas for pleasure on the sea,
      And sorrow on the shore!
    The smile that bless’d one lover’s heart
      Has broken many more!


_651._ _Time of Roses_

    It was not in the Winter
      Our loving lot was cast;
    It was the time of roses--
      We pluck’d them as we pass’d!

    That churlish season never frown’d
      On early lovers yet:
    O no--the world was newly crown’d
      With flowers when first we met!


    ’Twas twilight, and I bade you go,
      But still you held me fast;
    It was the time of roses--
      We pluck’d them as we pass’d!


_652._ _Ruth_

    She stood breast-high amid the corn,
    Clasp’d by the golden light of morn,
    Like the sweetheart of the sun,
    Who many a glowing kiss had won.

    On her cheek an autumn flush,
    Deeply ripen’d;--such a blush
    In the midst of brown was born,
    Like red poppies grown with corn.

    Round her eyes her tresses fell,
    Which were blackest none could tell,
    But long lashes veiled a light,
    That had else been all too bright.

    And her hat, with shady brim,
    Made her tressy forehead dim;
    Thus she stood amid the stooks,
    Praising God with sweetest looks:--

    Sure, I said, Heav’n did not mean,
    Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
    Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
    Share my harvest and my home.


_653._ _The Death-bed_

    We watch’d her breathing thro’ 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.


_654._ _The Bridge of Sighs_

    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!
    O, 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--
    Anywhere, anywhere
      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!

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

    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!




WILLIAM THOM

1798-1848


_655._ _The Blind Boy’s Pranks_

    Men grew sae cauld, maids sae unkind,
      Love kentna whaur to stay:
    Wi’ fient an arrow, bow, or string--
    Wi’ droopin’ heart an’ drizzled wing,
      He faught his lonely way.

    ‘Is there nae mair in Garioch fair
      Ae spotless hame for me?
    Hae politics an’ corn an’ kye
    Ilk bosom stappit? Fie, O fie!
      I’ll swithe me o’er the sea.’

    He launch’d a leaf o’ jessamine,
      On whilk he daur’d to swim,
    An’ pillow’d his head on a wee rosebud,
    Syne laithfu’, lanely, Love ’gan scud
      Down Ury’s waefu’ stream.

     _655._ kentna] knew not. wi’ fient an arrow] i. q. with deuce an
     arrow. swithe] hie quickly. laithfu’] regretful.

    The birds sang bonnie as Love drew near,
      But dowie when he gaed by;
    Till lull’d wi’ the sough o’ monie a sang,
    He sleepit fu’ soun’ and sail’d alang
      ’Neath Heaven’s gowden sky.

    ’Twas just whaur creeping Ury greets
      Its mountain cousin Don,
    There wander’d forth a weelfaur’d dame,
    Wha listless gazed on the bonnie stream,
    As it flirted an’ play’d with a sunny beam
      That flicker’d its bosom upon.

    Love happit his head, I trow, that time
      The jessamine bark drew nigh,
    The lassie espied the wee rosebud,
    An’ aye her heart gae thud for thud,
      An’ quiet it wadna lie.

    ‘O gin I but had yon wearie wee flower
      That floats on the Ury sae fair!’--
    She lootit her hand for the silly rose-leaf,
    But little wist she o’ the pawkie thief
      That was lurkin’ an’ laughin’ there!

    Love glower’d when he saw her bonnie dark e’e,
      An’ swore by Heaven’s grace
    He ne’er had seen nor thought to see,
    Since e’er he left the Paphian lea,
      Sae lovely a dwallin’-place.

     dowie] dejectedly. weelfaur’d] well-favoured, comely. happit]
     covered up. lootit] lowered. pawkie] sly. glower’d] stared.

    Syne first of a’ in her blythesome breast
      He built a bower, I ween;
    An’ what did the waefu’ devilick neist?
    But kindled a gleam like the rosy east,
      That sparkled frae baith her e’en.

    An’ then beneath ilk high e’e-bree
      He placed a quiver there;
    His bow? What but her shinin’ brow?
    An’ O sic deadly strings he drew
      Frae out her silken hair!

    Guid be our guard! Sic deeds waur deen
      Roun’ a’ our countrie then;
    An’ monie a hangin’ lug was seen
    ’Mang farmers fat, an’ lawyers lean,
      An’ herds o’ common men!

     _655._ e’e-bree] eyebrow. lug] ear.




SIR HENRY TAYLOR

1800-1886


_656._ _Elena’s Song_

    Quoth tongue of neither maid nor wife
      To heart of neither wife nor maid--
    Lead we not here a jolly life
      Betwixt the shine and shade?

    Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife
      To tongue of neither wife nor maid--
    Thou wagg’st, but I am worn with strife,
      And feel like flowers that fade.




THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, LORD MACAULAY

1800-1859


_657._ _A Jacobite’s Epitaph_

    To my true king I offer’d free from stain
    Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
    For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away,
    And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
    For him I languished in a foreign clime,
    Gray-hair’d with sorrow in my manhood’s prime;
    Heard on Lavernia Scargill’s whispering trees,
    And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
    Beheld each night my home in fever’d sleep,
    Each morning started from the dream to weep;
    Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
    The resting-place I ask’d, an early grave.
    O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
    From that proud country which was once mine own,
    By those white cliffs I never more must see,
    By that dear language which I spake like thee,
    Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
    O’er English dust. A broken heart lies here.




WILLIAM BARNES

1801-1886


_658._ _Mater Dolorosa_

    I’d a dream to-night
      As I fell asleep,
    O! the touching sight
      Makes me still to weep:
    Of my little lad,
    Gone to leave me sad,
    Ay, the child I had,
      But was not to keep.

    As in heaven high,
      I my child did seek,
    There in train came by
      Children fair and meek,
    Each in lily white,
    With a lamp alight;
    Each was clear to sight,
      But they did not speak.

    Then, a little sad,
      Came my child in turn,
    But the lamp he had,
      O it did not burn!
    He, to clear my doubt,
    Said, half turn’d about,
    ‘Your tears put it out;
      Mother, never mourn.’


_659._ _The Wife a-lost_

    Since I noo mwore do zee your feäce,
      Up steärs or down below,
    I’ll zit me in the lwonesome pleäce,
      Where flat-bough’d beech do grow;
    Below the beeches’ bough, my love,
      Where you did never come,
    An’ I don’t look to meet ye now,
      As I do look at hwome.

    Since you noo mwore be at my zide,
      In walks in zummer het,
    I’ll goo alwone where mist do ride,
      Droo trees a-drippèn wet;
    Below the rain-wet bough, my love,
      Where you did never come,
    An’ I don’t grieve to miss ye now,
      As I do grieve at hwome.

    Since now bezide my dinner-bwoard
      Your vaïce do never sound,
    I’ll eat the bit I can avword
      A-vield upon the ground;
    Below the darksome bough, my love,
      Where you did never dine,
    An’ I don’t grieve to miss ye now,
      As I at hwome do pine.

    Since I do miss your vaïce an’ feäce
      In praÿer at eventide,
    I’ll praÿ wi’ woone sad vaïce vor greäce
      To goo where you do bide;
    Above the tree an’ bough, my love,
      Where you be gone avore,
    An’ be a-waitèn vor me now,
      To come vor evermwore.




WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED

1802-1839


_660._ _Fairy Song_

    He has conn’d the lesson now;
      He has read the book of pain:
    There are furrows on his brow;
      I must make it smooth again.

    Lo! I knock the spurs away;
      Lo! I loosen belt and brand;
    Hark! I hear the courser neigh
      For his stall in Fairy-land.

    Bring the cap, and bring the vest;
      Buckle on his sandal shoon;
    Fetch his memory from the chest
      In the treasury of the moon.

    I have taught him to be wise
      For a little maiden’s sake;--
    Lo! he opens his glad eyes.
      Softly, slowly: Minstrel, wake!




SARA COLERIDGE

1802-1850


_661._ _O sleep my Babe_

    Sleep, my babe, hear not the rippling wave,
    Nor feel the breeze that round thee ling’ring strays
          To drink thy balmy breath,
          And sigh one long farewell.

    Soon shall it mourn above thy wat’ry bed,
    And whisper to me, on the wave-beat shore,
          Deep murm’ring in reproach,
          Thy sad untimely fate.

    Ere those dear eyes had open’d on the light,
    In vain to plead, thy coming life was sold,
          O waken’d but to sleep,
          Whence it can wake no more!

    A thousand and a thousand silken leaves
    The tufted beech unfolds in early spring,
          All clad in tenderest green,
          All of the self-same shape:

    A thousand infant faces, soft and sweet,
    Each year sends forth, yet every mother views
          Her last not least beloved
          Like its dear self alone.

    No musing mind hath ever yet foreshaped
    The face to-morrow’s sun shall first reveal,
          No heart hath e’er conceived
          What love that face will bring.

    O sleep, my babe, nor heed how mourns the gale
    To part with thy soft locks and fragrant breath,
          As when it deeply sighs
          O’er autumn’s latest bloom.


_662._ _The Child_

    See yon blithe child that dances in our sight!
    Can gloomy shadows fall from one so bright?
                Fond mother, whence these fears?
    While buoyantly he rushes o’er the lawn,
    Dream not of clouds to stain his manhood’s dawn,
                Nor dim that sight with tears.

    No cloud he spies in brightly glowing hours,
    But feels as if the newly vested bowers
                For him could never fade:
    Too well we know that vernal pleasures fleet,
    But having him, so gladsome, fair, and sweet,
                Our loss is overpaid.

    Amid the balmiest flowers that earth can give
    Some bitter drops distil, and all that live
                A mingled portion share;
    But, while he learns these truths which we lament,
    Such fortitude as ours will sure be sent,
                Such solace to his care.




GERALD GRIFFIN

1803-1840


_663._ _Eileen Aroon_

    When like the early rose,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Beauty in childhood blows,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    When, like a diadem,
    Buds blush around the stem,
    Which is the fairest gem?--
                  Eileen Aroon!

    Is it the laughing eye,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Is it the timid sigh,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Is it the tender tone,
    Soft as the string’d harp’s moan?
    O, it is truth alone,--
                  Eileen Aroon!

    When like the rising day,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Love sends his early ray,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    What makes his dawning glow,
    Changeless through joy or woe?
    Only the constant know:--
                  Eileen Aroon!

    I know a valley fair,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    I knew a cottage there,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Far in that valley’s shade
    I knew a gentle maid,
    Flower of a hazel glade,--
                  Eileen Aroon!

    Who in the song so sweet?
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Who in the dance so fleet?
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Dear were her charms to me,
    Dearer her laughter free,
    Dearest her constancy,--
                  Eileen Aroon!

    Were she no longer true,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    What should her lover do?
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Fly with his broken chain
    Far o’er the sounding main,
    Never to love again,--
                  Eileen Aroon!

    Youth must with time decay,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Beauty must fade away,
                  Eileen Aroon!
    Castles are sack’d in war,
    Chieftains are scatter’d far,
    Truth is a fixèd star,--
                  Eileen Aroon!




JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN

1803-1840


_664._ _Dark Rosaleen_

    O my Dark Rosaleen,
      Do not sigh, do not weep!
    The priests are on the ocean green,
      They march along the deep.
    There’s wine from the royal Pope,
      Upon the ocean green;
    And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
      My Dark Rosaleen!
      My own Rosaleen!
    Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
    Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
      My Dark Rosaleen!

    Over hills, and thro’ dales,
      Have I roam’d for your sake;
    All yesterday I sail’d with sails
      On river and on lake.
    The Erne, at its highest flood,
      I dash’d across unseen,
    For there was lightning in my blood,
      My Dark Rosaleen!
      My own Rosaleen!
    O, there was lightning in my blood,
    Red lightning lighten’d thro’ my blood.
      My Dark Rosaleen!

    All day long, in unrest,
      To and fro, do I move.
    The very soul within my breast
      Is wasted for you, love!
    The heart in my bosom faints
      To think of you, my Queen,
    My life of life, my saint of saints,
      My Dark Rosaleen!
      My own Rosaleen!
    To hear your sweet and sad complaints,
    My life, my love, my saint of saints,
      My Dark Rosaleen!

    Woe and pain, pain and woe,
      Are my lot, night and noon,
    To see your bright face clouded so,
      Like to the mournful moon.
    But yet will I rear your throne
      Again in golden sheen;
    ’Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,
      My Dark Rosaleen!
      My own Rosaleen!
    ’Tis you shall have the golden throne,
    ’Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,
      My Dark Rosaleen!

    Over dews, over sands,
      Will I fly, for your weal:
    Your holy delicate white hands
      Shall girdle me with steel.
    At home, in your emerald bowers,
      From morning’s dawn till e’en,
    You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
      My Dark Rosaleen!
      My fond Rosaleen!
    You’ll think of me through daylight hours,
    My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
      My Dark Rosaleen!

    I could scale the blue air,
      I could plough the high hills,
    O, I could kneel all night in prayer,
      To heal your many ills!
    And one beamy smile from you
      Would float like light between
    My toils and me, my own, my true,
      My Dark Rosaleen!
      My fond Rosaleen!
    Would give me life and soul anew,
    A second life, a soul anew,
      My Dark Rosaleen!

    O, the Erne shall run red,
      With redundance of blood,
    The earth shall rock beneath our tread,
      And flames wrap hill and wood,
    And gun-peal and slogan-cry
      Wake many a glen serene,
    Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,
      My Dark Rosaleen!
      My own Rosaleen!
    The Judgement Hour must first be nigh,
    Ere you can fade, ere you can die,
      My Dark Rosaleen!


_665._ _The Nameless One_

    Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river,
      That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
    God will inspire me while I deliver
                      My soul of thee!

    Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening
      Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
    That once there was one whose veins ran lightning
                      No eye beheld.

    Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,
      How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,
    No star of all heaven sends to light our
                      Path to the tomb.

    Roll on, my song, and to after ages
      Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
    He would have taught men, from wisdom’s pages,
                      The way to live.

    And tell how trampled, derided, hated,
      And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
    He fled for shelter to God, who mated
                      His soul with song.

    --With song which alway, sublime or vapid,
      Flow’d like a rill in the morning beam,
    Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid--
                      A mountain stream.

    Tell how this Nameless, condemn’d for years long
      To herd with demons from hell beneath,
    Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
                      For even death.

    Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
      Betray’d in friendship, befool’d in love,
    With spirit shipwreck’d, and young hopes blasted,
                      He still, still strove;

    Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others
      (And some whose hands should have wrought for him,
    If children live not for sires and mothers),
                      His mind grew dim;

    And he fell far through that pit abysmal,
      The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,
    And pawn’d his soul for the devil’s dismal
                      Stock of returns.

    But yet redeemed it in days of darkness,
      And shapes and signs of the final wrath,
    When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness,
                      Stood on his path.

    And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,
      And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,
    He bides in calmness the silent morrow,
                      That no ray lights.

    And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and hoary
      At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
    He lives, enduring what future story
                      Will never know.

    Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,
      Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell!
    He too, had tears for all souls in trouble,
                      Here and in hell.




THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES

1803-1849


_666._ _Wolfram’s Dirge_

    If thou wilt ease thine heart
    Of love and all its smart,
      Then sleep, dear, sleep;
    And not a sorrow
      Hang any tear on your eyelashes;
        Lie still and deep,
      Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes
    The rim of the sun to-morrow,
        In eastern sky.

    But wilt thou cure thine heart
    Of love and all its smart,
      Then die, dear, die;
    ’Tis deeper, sweeter,
      Than on a rose-bank to lie dreaming
        With folded eye;
      And there alone, amid the beaming
    Of Love’s stars, thou’lt meet her
        In eastern sky.


_667._ _Dream-Pedlary_

    If there were dreams to sell,
        What would you buy?
    Some cost a passing bell;
        Some a light sigh,
    That shakes from Life’s fresh crown
    Only a rose-leaf down.
    If there were dreams to sell,
    Merry and sad to tell,
    And the crier rang the bell,
        What would you buy?

    A cottage lone and still,
        With bowers nigh,
    Shadowy, my woes to still,
        Until I die.
    Such pearl from Life’s fresh crown
    Fain would I shake me down.
    Were dreams to have at will,
    This would best heal my ill,
        This would I buy.


_668._ _Song_

    How many times do I love thee, dear?
      Tell me how many thoughts there be
              In the atmosphere
              Of a new-fall’n year,
    Whose white and sable hours appear
      The latest flake of Eternity:
    So many times do I love thee, dear.

    How many times do I love again?
      Tell me how many beads there are
              In a silver chain
              Of evening rain,
    Unravell’d from the tumbling main,
      And threading the eye of a yellow star:
    So many times do I love again.




RALPH WALDO EMERSON

1803-1882


_669._ _Give All to Love_

    Give all to love;
    Obey thy heart;
    Friends, kindred, days,
    Estate, good fame,
    Plans, credit, and the Muse--
    Nothing refuse.

    ’Tis a brave master;
    Let it have scope:
    Follow it utterly,
    Hope beyond hope:
    High and more high
    It dives into noon,
    With wing unspent,
    Untold intent;
    But it is a god,
    Knows its own path,
    And the outlets of the sky.

    It was never for the mean;
    It requireth courage stout,
    Souls above doubt,
    Valour unbending:
    Such ’twill reward;--
    They shall return
    More than they were,
    And ever ascending.

    Leave all for love;
    Yet, hear me, yet,
    One word more thy heart behoved,
    One pulse more of firm endeavour--
    Keep thee to-day,
    To-morrow, for ever,
    Free as an Arab
    Of thy beloved.

    Cling with life to the maid;
    But when the surprise,
    First vague shadow of surmise,
    Flits across her bosom young,
    Of a joy apart from thee,
    Free be she, fancy-free;
    Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
    Nor the palest rose she flung
    From her summer diadem.

    Though thou loved her as thyself,
    As a self of purer clay;
    Though her parting dims the day,
    Stealing grace from all alive;
    Heartily know,
    When half-gods go
    The gods arrive.


_670._ _Uriel_

    It fell in the ancient periods
      Which the brooding soul surveys,
    Or ever the wild Time coin’d itself
      Into calendar months and days.

    This was the lapse of Uriel,
    Which in Paradise befell.
    Once, among the Pleiads walking,
    Sayd overheard the young gods talking;
    And the treason, too long pent,
    To his ears was evident.
    The young deities discuss’d
    Laws of form, and metre just,
    Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
    What subsisteth, and what seems.
    One, with low tones that decide,
    And doubt and reverend use defied,
    With a look that solved the sphere,
    And stirr’d the devils everywhere,
    Gave his sentiment divine
    Against the being of a line.
    ‘Line in nature is not found;
    Unit and universe are round;
    In vain produced, all rays return;
    Evil will bless, and ice will burn.’
    As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
    A shudder ran around the sky;
    The stern old war-gods shook their heads;
    The seraphs frown’d from myrtle-beds;
    Seem’d to the holy festival
    The rash word boded ill to all;
    The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
    The bounds of good and ill were rent;
    Strong Hades could not keep his own,
    But all slid to confusion.

    A sad self-knowledge withering fell
    On the beauty of Uriel;
    In heaven once eminent, the god
    Withdrew that hour into his cloud;
    Whether doom’d to long gyration
    In the sea of generation,
    Or by knowledge grown too bright
    To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
    Straightway a forgetting wind
    Stole over the celestial kind,
    And their lips the secret kept,
    If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
    But, now and then, truth-speaking things
    Shamed the angels’ veiling wings;
    And, shrilling from the solar course,
    Or from fruit of chemic force,
    Procession of a soul in matter,
    Or the speeding change of water,
    Or out of the good of evil born,
    Came Uriel’s voice of cherub scorn,
    And a blush tinged the upper sky,
    And the gods shook, they knew not why.


_671._ _Bacchus_

    Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
    In the belly of the grape,
    Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through
    Under the Andes to the Cape,
    Suffer’d no savour of the earth to ’scape.

    Let its grapes the morn salute
    From a nocturnal root,
    Which feels the acrid juice
    Of Styx and Erebus;
    And turns the woe of Night,
    By its own craft, to a more rich delight.

    We buy ashes for bread;
    We buy diluted wine;
    Give me of the true,
    Whose ample leaves and tendrils curl’d
    Among the silver hills of heaven
    Draw everlasting dew;
    Wine of wine,
    Blood of the world,
    Form of forms, and mould of statures,
    That I intoxicated,
    And by the draught assimilated,
    May float at pleasure through all natures;
    The bird-language rightly spell,
    And that which roses say so well:

    Wine that is shed
    Like the torrents of the sun
    Up the horizon walls,
    Or like the Atlantic streams, which run
    When the South Sea calls.

    Water and bread,
    Food which needs no transmuting,
    Rainbow-flowering, wisdom-fruiting,
    Wine which is already man,
    Food which teach and reason can.

    Wine which Music is,--
    Music and wine are one,--
    That I, drinking this,
    Shall hear far Chaos talk with me;
    Kings unborn shall walk with me;
    And the poor grass shall plot and plan
    What it will do when it is man.
    Quicken’d so, will I unlock
    Every crypt of every rock.

    I thank the joyful juice
    For all I know;
    Winds of remembering
    Of the ancient being blow,
    And seeming-solid walls of use
    Open and flow.

    Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine;
    Retrieve the loss of me and mine!
    Vine for vine be antidote,
    And the grape requite the lote!
    Haste to cure the old despair;
    Reason in Nature’s lotus drench’d--
    The memory of ages quench’d--
    Give them again to shine;
    Let wine repair what this undid;
    And where the infection slid,
    A dazzling memory revive;
    Refresh the faded tints,
    Recut the agèd prints,
    And write my old adventures with the pen
    Which on the first day drew,
    Upon the tablets blue,
    The dancing Pleiads and eternal men.


_672._ _Brahma_

    If the red slayer think he slays,
      Or if the slain think he is slain,
    They know not well the subtle ways
      I keep, and pass, and turn again.


    Far or forgot to me is near;
      Shadow and sunlight are the same;
    The vanish’d gods to me appear;
      And one to me are shame and fame.

    They reckon ill who leave me out;
      When me they fly, I am the wings;
    I am the doubter and the doubt,
      And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

    The strong gods pine for my abode,
      And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
    But thou, meek lover of the good!
      Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.




RICHARD HENRY HORNE

1803-1884


_673._ _The Plough_

A LANDSCAPE IN BERKSHIRE

    Above yon sombre swell of land
      Thou see’st the dawn’s grave orange hue,
    With one pale streak like yellow sand,
      And over that a vein of blue.

    The air is cold above the woods;
      All silent is the earth and sky,
    Except with his own lonely moods
      The blackbird holds a colloquy.

    Over the broad hill creeps a beam,
      Like hope that gilds a good man’s brow;
    And now ascends the nostril-stream
      Of stalwart horses come to plough.


    Ye rigid Ploughmen, bear in mind
      Your labour is for future hours:
    Advance--spare not--nor look behind--
      Plough deep and straight with all your powers!




ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER

1804-1875


_674._ _King Arthur’s Waes-hael_

    Waes-hael for knight and dame!
      O merry be their dole!
    Drink-hael! in Jesu’s name
      We fill the tawny bowl;
    But cover down the curving crest,
    Mould of the Orient Lady’s breast.

    Waes-hael! yet lift no lid:
      Drain ye the reeds for wine.
    Drink-hael! the milk was hid
      That soothed that Babe divine;
    Hush’d, as this hollow channel flows,
    He drew the balsam from the rose.

    Waes-hael! thus glow’d the breast
      Where a God yearn’d to cling;
    Drink-hael! so Jesu press’d
      Life from its mystic spring;
    Then hush and bend in reverent sign
    And breathe the thrilling reeds for wine.

    Waes-hael! in shadowy scene
      Lo! Christmas children we:
    Drink-hael! behold we lean
      At a far Mother’s knee;
    To dream that thus her bosom smiled,
    And learn the lip of Bethlehem’s Child.


_675._ _Are they not all Ministering Spirits?_

    We see them not--we cannot hear
      The music of their wing--
    Yet know we that they sojourn near,
      The Angels of the spring!

    They glide along this lovely ground
      When the first violet grows;
    Their graceful hands have just unbound
      The zone of yonder rose.

    I gather it for thy dear breast,
      From stain and shadow free:
    That which an Angel’s touch hath blest
      Is meet, my love, for thee!




THOMAS WADE

1805-1875


_676._ _The Half-asleep_

    O for the mighty wakening that aroused
      The old-time Prophets to their missions high;
      And to blind Homer’s inward sunlike eye
    Show’d the heart’s universe where he caroused
    Radiantly; the Fishers poor unhoused,
      And sent them forth to preach divinity;
      And made our Milton his great dark defy,
    To the light of one immortal theme espoused!
    But half asleep are those now most awake;
      And save calm-thoughted Wordsworth, we have none
    Who for eternity put time at stake,
      And hold a constant course as doth the sun:
    We yield but drops that no deep thirstings slake;
      And feebly cease ere we have well begun.




FRANCIS MAHONY

1805-1866


_677._ _The Bells of Shandon_

    With deep affection,
      And recollection,
    I often think of
      Those Shandon bells,
    Whose sounds so wild would,
    In the days of childhood,
    Fling around my cradle
      Their magic spells.
    On this I ponder
    Where’er I wander,
    And thus grow fonder,
      Sweet Cork, of thee;
    With thy bells of Shandon,
    That sound so grand on
    The pleasant waters
      Of the River Lee.

    I’ve heard bells chiming
    Full many a clime in,
    Tolling sublime in
      Cathedral shrine,
    While at a glib rate
    Brass tongues would vibrate--
    But all their music
      Spoke naught like thine;
    For memory, dwelling
    On each proud swelling
    Of the belfry knelling
      Its bold notes free,
    Made the bells of Shandon
    Sound far more grand on
    The pleasant waters
      Of the River Lee.

    I’ve heard bells tolling
    Old Adrian’s Mole in,
    Their thunder rolling
      From the Vatican,
    And cymbals glorious
    Swinging uproarious
    In the gorgeous turrets
      Of Notre Dame;
    But thy sounds were sweeter
    Than the dome of Peter
    Flings o’er the Tiber,
      Pealing solemnly--
    O, the bells of Shandon
    Sound far more grand on
    The pleasant waters
      Of the River Lee.

    There’s a bell in Moscow,
    While on tower and kiosk O!
    In Saint Sophia
      The Turkman gets,
    And loud in air
    Calls men to prayer
    From the tapering summits
      Of tall minarets.
    Such empty phantom
    I freely grant them;
    But there’s an anthem
      More dear to me,--
    ’Tis the bells of Shandon,
    That sound so grand on
    The pleasant waters
      Of the River Lee.




ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

1806-1861


_678._ _Rosalind’s Scroll_

    I left thee last, a child at heart,
      A woman scarce in years:
    I come to thee, a solemn corpse
      Which neither feels nor fears.
    I have no breath to use in sighs;
    They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes
      To seal them safe from tears.

    Look on me with thine own calm look:
      I meet it calm as thou.
    No look of thine can change this smile,
      Or break thy sinful vow:
    I tell thee that my poor scorn’d heart
    Is of thine earth--thine earth--a part:
      It cannot vex thee now.

    I have pray’d for thee with bursting sob
      When passion’s course was free;
    I have pray’d for thee with silent lips
      In the anguish none could see;
    They whisper’d oft, ‘She sleepeth soft’--
      But I only pray’d for thee.

    Go to! I pray for thee no more:
      The corpse’s tongue is still;
    Its folded fingers point to heaven,
      But point there stiff and chill:
    No farther wrong, no farther woe
    Hath licence from the sin below
      Its tranquil heart to thrill.

    I charge thee, by the living’s prayer,
      And the dead’s silentness,
    To wring from out thy soul a cry
      Which God shall hear and bless!
    Lest Heaven’s own palm droop in my hand,
    And pale among the saints I stand,
      A saint companionless.


_679._ _The Deserted Garden_

    I mind me in the days departed,
    How often underneath the sun
    With childish bounds I used to run
      To a garden long deserted.

    The beds and walks were vanish’d quite;
    And wheresoe’er had struck the spade,
    The greenest grasses Nature laid,
      To sanctify her right.

    I call’d the place my wilderness,
    For no one enter’d there but I.
    The sheep look’d in, the grass to espy,
      And pass’d it ne’ertheless.

    The trees were interwoven wild,
    And spread their boughs enough about
    To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
      But not a happy child.

    Adventurous joy it was for me;
    I crept beneath the boughs, and found
    A circle smooth of mossy ground
      Beneath a poplar-tree.

    Old garden rose-trees hedged it in;
    Bedropt with roses waxen-white,
    Well satisfied with dew and light,
      And careless to be seen.

    Long years ago, it might befall,
    When all the garden flowers were trim,
    The grave old gardener prided him
      On these the most of all.

    Some Lady, stately overmuch,
    Here moving with a silken noise,
    Has blush’d beside them at the voice
      That liken’d her to such.

    Or these, to make a diadem,
    She often may have pluck’d and twined;
    Half-smiling as it came to mind,
      That few would look at _them_.

    O, little thought that Lady proud,
    A child would watch her fair white rose,
    When buried lay her whiter brows,
      And silk was changed for shroud!--

    Nor thought that gardener (full of scorns
    For men unlearn’d and simple phrase)
    A child would bring it all its praise,
      By creeping through the thorns!

    To me upon my low moss seat,
    Though never a dream the roses sent
    Of science or love’s compliment,
      I ween they smelt as sweet.

    It did not move my grief to see
    The trace of human step departed:
    Because the garden was deserted,
      The blither place for me!

    Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken
    Hath childhood ’twixt the sun and sward;
    We draw the moral afterward--
      We feel the gladness then.

    And gladdest hours for me did glide
    In silence at the rose-tree wall:
    A thrush made gladness musical
      Upon the other side.

    Nor he nor I did e’er incline
    To peck or pluck the blossoms white:--
    How should I know but that they might
      Lead lives as glad as mine?

    To make my hermit-home complete,
    I brought clear water from the spring
    Praised in its own low murmuring,
      And cresses glossy wet.

    And so, I thought, my likeness grew
    (Without the melancholy tale)
    To ‘gentle hermit of the dale,’
      And Angelina too.

    For oft I read within my nook
    Such minstrel stories; till the breeze
    Made sounds poetic in the trees,
      And then I shut the book.

    If I shut this wherein I write,
    I hear no more the wind athwart
    Those trees, nor feel that childish heart
      Delighting in delight.

    My childhood from my life is parted,
    My footstep from the moss which drew
    Its fairy circle round: anew
      The garden is deserted.

    Another thrush may there rehearse
    The madrigals which sweetest are;
    No more for me!--myself afar
      Do sing a sadder verse.

    Ah me! ah me! when erst I lay
    In that child’s-nest so greenly wrought,
    I laugh’d unto myself and thought,
      ‘The time will pass away.’

    And still I laugh’d, and did not fear
    But that, whene’er was pass’d away
    The childish time, some happier play
      My womanhood would cheer.

    I knew the time would pass away;
    And yet, beside the rose-tree wall,
    Dear God, how seldom, if at all,
      Did I look up to pray!

    The time is past: and now that grows
    The cypress high among the trees,
    And I behold white sepulchres
      As well as the white rose,--

    When wiser, meeker thoughts are given,
    And I have learnt to lift my face,
    Reminded how earth’s greenest place
      The colour draws from heaven,--

    It something saith for earthly pain,
    But more for heavenly promise free,
    That I who was, would shrink to be
      That happy child again.


_680._ _Consolation_

    All are not taken; there are left behind
    Living Belovèds, tender looks to bring
      And make the daylight still a happy thing,
    And tender voices, to make soft the wind:
    But if it were not so--if I could find
      No love in all this world for comforting,
      Nor any path but hollowly did ring
    Where ‘dust to dust’ the love from life disjoin’d,
    And if, before those sepulchres unmoving
      I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb
    Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)
    Crying ‘Where are ye, O my loved and loving?’--
      I know a voice would sound, ‘Daughter, I AM.
    Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?’


_681._ _Grief_

    I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
    That only men incredulous of despair,
      Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
    Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
    Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
      In souls as countries lieth silent-bare
      Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
    Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
    Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death--
      Most like a monumental statue set
    In everlasting watch and moveless woe
    Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
      Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
    If it could weep, it could arise and go.


_Sonnets from the Portuguese_


_682._ _i_

    I thought once how Theocritus had sung
      Of the sweet years, the dear and wish’d-for years,
      Who each one in a gracious hand appears
    To bear a gift for mortals old or young:
    And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
      I saw in gradual vision through my tears
      The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years--
    Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
    A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
      So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
    Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
      And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
    ‘Guess now who holds thee?’--‘Death’ I said. But there
      The silver answer rang--'Not Death, but Love.’


_683._ _ii_

    Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
    Unlike our uses and our destinies.
      Our ministering two angels look surprise
    On one another, as they strike athwart
    Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
      A guest for queens to social pageantries,
      With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
    Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
    Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
      With looking from the lattice-lights at me--
    A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
      The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
    The chrism is on thine head--on mine the dew--
      And Death must dig the level where these agree.


_684._ _iii_

    Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
    Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
      Alone upon the threshold of my door
    Of individual life I shall command
    The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
      Serenely in the sunshine as before,
      Without the sense of that which I forbore--
    Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
    Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
      With pulses that beat double. What I do
    And what I dream include thee, as the wine
      Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
    God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
      And sees within my eyes the tears of two.


_685._ _iv_

    If thou must love me, let it be for naught
    Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
      ‘I love her for her smile--her look--her way
    Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
    That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
      A sense of pleasant ease on such a day--
      For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
    Be changed, or change for thee--and love, so wrought,
    May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
      Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:
    A creature might forget to weep, who bore
      Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
    But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
      Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.


_686._ _v_

    When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
    Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
      Until the lengthening wings break into fire
    At either curving point,--what bitter wrong
    Can the earth do us, that we should not long
      Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
      The angels would press on us, and aspire
    To drop some golden orb of perfect song
    Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
      Rather on earth, Belovèd--where the unfit
    Contrarious moods of men recoil away
      And isolate pure spirits, and permit
    A place to stand and love in for a day,
      With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.


_687._ _A Musical Instrument_

    What was he doing, the great god Pan,
      Down in the reeds by the river?
    Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
    Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
    And breaking the golden lilies afloat
      With the dragon-fly on the river.

    He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
      From the deep cool bed of the river;
    The limpid water turbidly ran,
    And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
    And the dragon-fly had fled away,
      Ere he brought it out of the river.

    High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
      While turbidly flow’d the river;
    And hack’d and hew’d as a great god can
    With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
    Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
      To prove it fresh from the river.

    He cut it short, did the great god Pan
      (How tall it stood in the river!),
    Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
    Steadily from the outside ring,
    And notch’d the poor dry empty thing
      In holes, as he sat by the river.

    ‘This is the way’ laugh’d the great god Pan
     (Laugh’d while he sat by the river),
    ‘The only way, since gods began
    To make sweet music, they could succeed.’
    Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
      He blew in power by the river.


    Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
      Piercing sweet by the river!
    Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
    The sun on the hill forgot to die,
    And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
      Came back to dream on the river.

    Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
      To laugh as he sits by the river,
    Making a poet out of a man:
    The true gods sigh for the cost and pain--
    For the reed which grows nevermore again
      As a reed with the reeds of the river.




FREDERICK TENNYSON

1807-1898


_688._ _The Holy Tide_

    The days are sad, it is the Holy tide.
      The Winter morn is short, the Night is long;
    So let the lifeless Hours be glorified
      With deathless thoughts and echo’d in sweet song:
    And through the sunset of this purple cup
      They will resume the roses of their prime,
    And the old Dead will hear us and wake up,
      Pass with dim smiles and make our hearts sublime!

    The days are sad, it is the Holy tide:
      Be dusky mistletoes and hollies strown,
    Sharp as the spear that pierced His sacred side,
      Red as the drops upon His thorny crown;
    No haggard Passion and no lawless Mirth
      Fright off the solemn Muse,--tell sweet old tales,
    Sing songs as we sit brooding o’er the hearth,
      Till the lamp flickers, and the memory fails.




HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

1807-1882


_689._ _My Lost Youth_

    Often I think of the beautiful town
      That is seated by the sea;
    Often in thought go up and down
    The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
      And my youth comes back to me.
        And a verse of a Lapland song
        Is haunting my memory still:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
      And catch, in sudden gleams,
    The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
    And islands that were the Hesperides
      Of all my boyish dreams.
        And the burden of that old song,
        It murmurs and whispers still:
        ‘A Boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    I remember the black wharves and the slips,
      And the sea-tides tossing free;
    And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
    And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
      And the magic of the sea.
        And the voice of that wayward song
        Is singing and saying still:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’


    I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
      And the fort upon the hill;
    The sunrise gun with its hollow roar,
    The drum-beat repeated o’er and o’er,
      And the bugle wild and shrill.
        And the music of that old song
        Throbs in my memory still:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    I remember the sea-fight far away,
      How it thunder’d o’er the tide!
    And the dead sea-captains, as they lay
    In their graves o’erlooking the tranquil bay
      Where they in battle died.
        And the sound of that mournful song
        Goes through me with a thrill:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    I can see the breezy dome of groves,
      The shadows of Deering’s woods;
    And the friendships old and the early loves
    Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
      In quiet neighbourhoods.
        And the verse of that sweet old song,
        It flutters and murmurs still:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
      Across the schoolboy’s brain;
    The song and the silence in the heart,
    That in part are prophecies, and in part
      Are longings wild and vain.
        And the voice of that fitful song
        Sings on, and is never still:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    There are things of which I may not speak;
      There are dreams that cannot die;
    There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
    And bring a pallor into the cheek,
      And a mist before the eye.
        And the words of that fatal song
        Come over me like a chill:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    Strange to me now are the forms I meet
      When I visit the dear old town;
    But the native air is pure and sweet,
    And the trees that o’ershadow each well-known street,
      As they balance up and down,
        Are singing the beautiful song,
        Are sighing and whispering still:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

    And Deering’s woods are fresh and fair,
      And with joy that is almost pain
    My heart goes back to wander there,
    And among the dreams of the days that were
      I find my lost youth again.
        And the strange and beautiful song,
        The groves are repeating it still:
        ‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
    And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’




JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

1807-1892


_690._ _Vesta_

    O Christ of God! whose life and death
      Our own have reconciled,
    Most quietly, most tenderly
      Take home thy star-named child!

    Thy grace is in her patient eyes,
      Thy words are on her tongue;
    The very silence round her seems
      As if the angels sung.

    Her smile is as a listening child’s
      Who hears its mother’s call;
    The lilies of Thy perfect peace
      About her pillow fall.

    She leans from out our clinging arms
      To rest herself in Thine;
    Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can we
      Our well-beloved resign.

    O, less for her than for ourselves
      We bow our heads and pray;
    Her setting star, like Bethlehem’s,
      To Thee shall point the way!




HELEN SELINA, LADY DUFFERIN

1807-1867


_691._ _Lament of the Irish Emigrant_

    I’m sittin’ on the stile, Mary,
      Where we sat side by side
    On a bright May mornin’ long ago,
      When first you were my bride;
    The corn was springin’ fresh and green,
      And the lark sang loud and high--
    And the red was on your lip, Mary,
      And the love-light in your eye.

    The place is little changed, Mary,
      The day is bright as then,
    The lark’s loud song is in my ear,
      And the corn is green again;
    But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,
      And your breath warm on my cheek,
    And I still keep list’ning for the words
      You never more will speak.

    ’Tis but a step down yonder lane,
      And the little church stands near,
    The church where we were wed, Mary,
      I see the spire from here.
    But the graveyard lies between, Mary,
      And my step might break your rest--
    For I’ve laid you, darling! down to sleep,
      With your baby on your breast.


    I’m very lonely now, Mary,
      For the poor make no new friends,
    But, O, they love the better still,
      The few our Father sends!
    And you were all _I_ had, Mary,
      My blessin’ and my pride:
    There’s nothin’ left to care for now,
      Since my poor Mary died.

    Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary,
      That still kept hoping on,
    When the trust in God had left my soul,
      And my arm’s young strength was gone:
    There was comfort ever on your lip,
      And the kind look on your brow--
    I bless you, Mary, for that same,
      Though you cannot hear me now.

    I thank you for the patient smile
      When your heart was fit to break,
    When the hunger pain was gnawin’ there,
      And you hid it, for my sake!
    I bless you for the pleasant word,
      When your heart was sad and sore--
    O, I’m thankful you are gone, Mary,
      Where grief can’t reach you more!

    I’m biddin’ you a long farewell,
      My Mary--kind and true!
    But I’ll not forget you, darling!
      In the land I’m goin’ to;
    They say there’s bread and work for all,
      And the sun shines always there--
    But I’ll not forget old Ireland,
      Were it fifty times as fair!

    And often in those grand old woods
      I’ll sit, and shut my eyes,
    And my heart will travel back again
      To the place where Mary lies;
    And I’ll think I see the little stile
      Where we sat side by side:
    And the springin’ corn, and the bright May morn,
      When first you were my bride.




CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON

1808-1876


_692._ _I do not love Thee_

      I do not love thee!--no! I do not love thee!
    And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
      And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
    Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.

      I do not love thee!--yet, I know not why,
    Whate’er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
      And often in my solitude I sigh
    That those I do love are not more like thee!

      I do not love thee!--yet, when thou art gone,
    I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
      Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
    Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.


      I do not love thee!--yet thy speaking eyes,
    With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
      Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
    Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.

      I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
    Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
      And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
    Because they see me gazing where thou art.




CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER

1808-1879


_693._ _Letty’s Globe_

    When Letty had scarce pass’d her third glad year,
      And her young artless words began to flow,
    One day we gave the child a colour’d sphere
      Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,
    By tint and outline, all its sea and land.
      She patted all the world; old empires peep’d
    Between her baby fingers; her soft hand
      Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap’d,
      And laugh’d and prattled in her world-wide bliss;
    But when we turn’d her sweet unlearnèd eye
    On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry--
    ‘Oh! yes, I see it, Letty’s home is there!’
      And while she hid all England with a kiss,
    Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.




EDGAR ALLAN POE

1809-1849


_694._ _To Helen_

    Helen, thy beauty is to me
      Like those Nicèan barks of yore
    That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
      The weary way-worn wanderer bore
      To his own native shore.

    On desperate seas long wont to roam,
      Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
    Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
      To the glory that was Greece,
      And the grandeur that was Rome.

    Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
      How statue-like I see thee stand,
      The agate lamp within thy hand,
    Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
      Are holy land!


_695._ _Annabel Lee_

    It was many and many a year ago,
        In a kingdom by the sea,
    That a maiden there lived whom you may know
        By the name of Annabel Lee.
    And this maiden she lived with no other thought
        Than to love and be loved by me.

    I was a child and she was a child
        In this kingdom by the sea:
    But we loved with a love that was more than love--
        I and my Annabel Lee,
    With a love that the wingèd seraphs of heaven
        Coveted her and me.

    And this was the reason that, long ago,
        In this kingdom by the sea,
    A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
        My beautiful Annabel Lee,
    So that her high-born kinsmen came
        And bore her away from me,
    To shut her up in a sepulchre
        In this kingdom by the sea.

    The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
        Went envying her and me--
    Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
        In this kingdom by the sea)
    That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
        Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

    But our love it was stronger by far than the love
        Of those who were older than we--
        Of many far wiser than we--
    And neither the angels in heaven above,
        Nor the demons down under the sea,
    Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
        Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

    For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
        Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
    And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
        Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
    And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
    Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,
        In the sepulchre there by the sea,
        In her tomb by the sounding sea.


_696._ _For Annie_

    Thank Heaven! the crisis--
      The danger is past,
    And the lingering illness
      Is over at last--
    And the fever called ‘Living’
      Is conquer’d at last.

    Sadly, I know
      I am shorn of my strength,
    And no muscle I move
      As I lie at full length:
    But no matter--I feel
      I am better at length.

    And I rest so composedly
      Now, in my bed,
    That any beholder
      Might fancy me dead--
    Might start at beholding me,
      Thinking me dead.

    The moaning and groaning,
      The sighing and sobbing,
    Are quieted now,
      With that horrible throbbing
    At heart--ah, that horrible,
      Horrible throbbing!

    The sickness--the nausea--
      The pitiless pain--
    Have ceased, with the fever
      That madden’d my brain--
    With the fever called ‘Living’
      That burn’d in my brain.

    And O! of all tortures
      That torture the worst
    Has abated--the terrible
      Torture of thirst
    For the naphthaline river
      Of Passion accurst--
    I have drunk of a water
      That quenches all thirst.

    --Of a water that flows,
      With a lullaby sound,
    From a spring but a very few
      Feet under ground--
    From a cavern not very far
      Down under ground.

    And ah! let it never
      Be foolishly said
    That my room it is gloomy,
      And narrow my bed;
    For man never slept
      In a different bed--
    And, to _sleep_, you must slumber
      In just such a bed.

    My tantalized spirit
      Here blandly reposes,
    Forgetting, or never
      Regretting its roses--
    Its old agitations
      Of myrtles and roses:

    For now, while so quietly
      Lying, it fancies
    A holier odour
      About it, of pansies--
    A rosemary odour,
      Commingled with pansies--
    With rue and the beautiful
      Puritan pansies.

    And so it lies happily,
      Bathing in many
    A dream of the truth
      And the beauty of Annie--
    Drown’d in a bath
      Of the tresses of Annie.

    She tenderly kiss’d me,
      She fondly caress’d,
    And then I fell gently
      To sleep on her breast--
    Deeply to sleep
      From the heaven of her breast.

    When the light was extinguish’d,
      She cover’d me warm,
    And she pray’d to the angels
      To keep me from harm--
    To the queen of the angels
      To shield me from harm.

    And I lie so composedly,
      Now, in my bed
    (Knowing her love),
      That you fancy me dead--
    And I rest so contentedly,
      Now, in my bed
    (With her love at my breast),
      That you fancy me dead--
    That you shudder to look at me,
      Thinking me dead.

    But my heart it is brighter
      Than all of the many
    Stars in the sky,
      For it sparkles with Annie--
    It glows with the light
      Of the love of my Annie--
    With the thought of the light
      Of the eyes of my Annie.




EDWARD FITZGERALD

1809-1883


_697._ _Old Song_

    ’Tis a dull sight
      To see the year dying,
    When winter winds
      Set the yellow wood sighing:
        Sighing, O sighing!

    When such a time cometh
      I do retire
    Into an old room
      Beside a bright fire:
        O, pile a bright fire!

    And there I sit
      Reading old things,
    Of knights and lorn damsels,
      While the wind sings--
        O, drearily sings!

    I never look out
      Nor attend to the blast;
    For all to be seen
      Is the leaves falling fast:
        Falling, falling!

    But close at the hearth,
      Like a cricket, sit I,
    Reading of summer
      And chivalry--
        Gallant chivalry!

    Then with an old friend
      I talk of our youth--
    How ’twas gladsome, but often
      Foolish, forsooth:
        But gladsome, gladsome!

    Or, to get merry,
      We sing some old rhyme
    That made the wood ring again
      In summer time--
        Sweet summer time!

    Then go we smoking,
      Silent and snug:
    Naught passes between us,
      Save a brown jug--
        Sometimes!

    And sometimes a tear
      Will rise in each eye,
    Seeing the two old friends
      So merrily--
        So merrily!

    And ere to bed
      Go we, go we,
    Down on the ashes
      We kneel on the knee,
        Praying together!

    Thus, then, live I
      Till, ’mid all the gloom,
    By Heaven! the bold sun
      Is with me in the room
        Shining, shining!

    Then the clouds part,
      Swallows soaring between;
    The spring is alive,
      And the meadows are green!

    I jump up like mad,
      Break the old pipe in twain,
    And away to the meadows,
      The meadows again!


_698._ _From Omar Khayyám_


I

    A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
    A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
      Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
    O. Wilderness were Paradise enow!

    Some for the Glories of This World; and some
    Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;
      Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
    Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

    Look to the blowing Rose about us--‘Lo,
    Laughing,’ she says, ‘into the world I blow,
      At once the silken tassel of my Purse
    Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.’

    And those who husbanded the Golden grain
    And those who flung it to the winds like Rain
      Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d
    As, buried once, Men want dug up again.


II

    Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai
    Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
      How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
    Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.

    They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
    The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
      And Bahrám, that great Hunter--the wild Ass
    Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

    I sometimes think that never blows so red
    The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
      That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
    Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

    And this reviving Herb whose tender Green
    Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean--
      Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
    From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

    Ah, my Belovèd, fill the Cup that clears
    TO-DAY of past Regrets and Future Fears:
      _To-morrow!_--Why, To-morrow I may be
    Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n thousand Years.

    For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
    That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
      Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
    And one by one crept silently to rest.

    And we, that now make merry in the Room
    They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
      Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
    Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?

    Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
    Before we too into the Dust descend;
      Dust unto Dust, and under Dust to lie,
    Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!


III

    Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
    And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
      And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,
    By some not unfrequented Garden-side....

    Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--
    How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
      How oft hereafter rising look for us
    Through this same Garden--and for _one_ in vain!

    And when like her, O Sákí, you shall pass
    Among the Guests star-scatter’d on the Grass,
      And in your joyous errand reach the spot
    Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!




ALFRED TENNYSON, LORD TENNYSON

1809-1892


_699._ _Mariana_

    With blackest moss the flower-plots
      Were thickly crusted, one and all:
    The rusted nails fell from the knots
      That held the pear to the gable-wall.
    The broken sheds look’d sad and strange:
      Unlifted was the clinking latch;
      Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
    Upon the lonely moated grange.
        She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
          He cometh not,’ she said;
        She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
          I would that I were dead!’

    Her tears fell with the dews at even;
      Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
    She could not look on the sweet heaven,
      Either at morn or eventide.
    After the flitting of the bats,
      When thickest dark did trance the sky,
      She drew her casement-curtain by,
    And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
        She only said, ‘The night is dreary,
          He cometh not,’ she said;
        She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
          I would that I were dead!’

    Upon the middle of the night,
      Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
    The cock sung out an hour ere light:
      From the dark fen the oxen’s low
    Came to her: without hope of change,
      In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn,
      Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
    About the lonely moated grange.
        She only said, ‘The day is dreary,
          He cometh not,’ she said;
        She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
          I would that I were dead!’

    About a stone-cast from the wall
      A sluice with blacken’d waters slept,
    And o’er it many, round and small,
      The cluster’d marish-mosses crept.
    Hard by a poplar shook alway,
      All silver-green with gnarlèd bark:
      For leagues no other tree did mark
    The level waste, the rounding gray.
        She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
          He cometh not,’ she said;
        She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
          I would that I were dead!’

    And ever when the moon was low,
      And the shrill winds were up and away,
    In the white curtain, to and fro,
      She saw the gusty shadow sway.
    But when the moon was very low,
      And wild winds bound within their cell,
      The shadow of the poplar fell
    Upon her bed, across her brow.
        She only said, ‘The night is dreary,
          He cometh not,’ she said;
        She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
          I would that I were dead!’

    All day within the dreamy house,
      The doors upon their hinges creak’d;
    The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
      Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,
    Or from the crevice peer’d about.
      Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors,
      Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
    Old voices call’d her from without.
        She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
          He cometh not,’ she said;
        She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,’
          I would that I were dead!’

    The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof,
      The slow clock ticking, and the sound
    Which to the wooing wind aloof
      The poplar made, did all confound
    Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
      When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
      Athwart the chambers, and the day
    Was sloping toward his western bower.
        Then, said she, ‘I am very dreary,
          He will not come,’ she said;
        She wept, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
          O God, that I were dead!’


_700.__The Lady of Shalott_


PART I

    On either side the river lie
    Long fields of barley and of rye,
    That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
    And thro’ the field the road runs by
                To many-tower’d Camelot;
    And up and down the people go,
    Gazing where the lilies blow
    Round an island there below,
                The island of Shalott.

    Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
    Little breezes dusk and shiver
    Thro’ the wave that runs for ever
    By the island in the river
                Flowing down to Camelot.
    Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
    Overlook a space of flowers,
    And the silent isle imbowers
                The Lady of Shalott.

    By the margin, willow-veil’d,
    Slide the heavy barges trail’d
    By slow horses; and unhail’d
    The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d
                Skimming down to Camelot:
    But who hath seen her wave her hand?
    Or at the casement seen her stand?
    Or is she known in all the land,
                The Lady of Shalott?

    Only reapers, reaping early
    In among the bearded barley,
    Hear a song that echoes cheerly
    From the river winding clearly,
                Down to tower’d Camelot:
    And by the moon the reaper weary,
    Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
    Listening, whispers ‘’Tis the fairy
                Lady of Shalott.’


PART II

    There she weaves by night and day
    A magic web with colours gay.
    She has heard a whisper say,
    A curse is on her if she stay
                To look down to Camelot.
    She knows not what the curse may be,
    And so she weaveth steadily,
    And little other care hath she,
                The Lady of Shalott.

    And moving thro’ a mirror clear
    That hangs before her all the year,
    Shadows of the world appear.
    There she sees the highway near
                Winding down to Camelot:
    There the river eddy whirls,
    And there the surly village-churls,
    And the red cloaks of market girls,
                Pass onward from Shalott.

    Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
    An abbot on an ambling pad,
    Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
    Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,
                Goes by to tower’d Camelot;
    And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
    The knights come riding two and two:
    She hath no loyal knight and true,
                The Lady of Shalott.

    But in her web she still delights
    To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
    For often thro’ the silent nights
    A funeral, with plumes and lights,
                And music, went to Camelot:
    Or when the moon was overhead,
    Came two young lovers lately wed;
    ‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said
                The Lady of Shalott.


PART III

    A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
    He rode between the barley-sheaves,
    The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
    And flamed upon the brazen greaves
                Of bold Sir Lancelot.
    A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
    To a lady in his shield,
    That sparkled on the yellow field,
                Beside remote Shalott.

    The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
    Like to some branch of stars we see
    Hung in the golden Galaxy.
    The bridle bells rang merrily
                As he rode down to Camelot;
    And from his blazon’d baldric slung
    A mighty silver bugle hung,
    And as he rode his armour rung,
                Beside remote Shalott.

    All in the blue unclouded weather
    Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
    The helmet and the helmet-feather
    Burn’d like one burning flame together,
                As he rode down to Camelot.
    As often thro’ the purple night,
    Below the starry clusters bright,
    Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
                Moves over still Shalott.

    His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
    On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
    From underneath his helmet flow’d
    His coal-black curls as on he rode,
                As he rode down to Camelot.
    From the bank and from the river
    He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
    ‘Tirra lirra,’ by the river
                Sang Sir Lancelot.

    She left the web, she left the loom,
    She made three paces thro’ the room,
    She saw the water-lily bloom,
    She saw the helmet and the plume,
                She look’d down to Camelot.
    Out flew the web and floated wide;
    The mirror crack’d from side to side;
    ‘The curse is come upon me!’ cried
                The Lady of Shalott.


PART IV

    In the stormy east-wind straining,
    The pale yellow woods were waning,
    The broad stream in his banks complaining,
    Heavily the low sky raining
                Over tower’d Camelot;
    Down she came and found a boat
    Beneath a willow left afloat,
    And round about the prow she wrote
                _The Lady of Shalott_.

    And down the river’s dim expanse--
    Like some bold seer in a trance,
    Seeing all his own mischance--
    With a glassy countenance
                Did she look to Camelot.
    And at the closing of the day
    She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
    The broad stream bore her far away,
                The Lady of Shalott.

    Lying, robed in snowy white
    That loosely flew to left and right--
    The leaves upon her falling light--
    Thro’ the noises of the night
                She floated down to Camelot;
    And as the boat-head wound along
    The willowy hills and fields among,
    They heard her singing her last song,
                The Lady of Shalott.

    Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
    Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
    Till her blood was frozen slowly,
    And her eyes were darkened wholly,
                Turn’d to tower’d Camelot;
    For ere she reach’d upon the tide
    The first house by the water-side,
    Singing in her song she died,
                The Lady of Shalott.

    Under tower and balcony,
    By garden-wall and gallery,
    A gleaming shape she floated by,
    Dead-pale between the houses high,
                Silent into Camelot.
    Out upon the wharfs they came,
    Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
    And round the prow they read her name,
                _The Lady of Shalott_.

    Who is this? and what is here?
    And in the lighted palace near
    Died the sound of royal cheer;
    And they cross’d themselves for fear,
                All the knights at Camelot:
    But Lancelot mused a little space;
    He said, ‘She has a lovely face;
    God in His mercy lend her grace,
                The Lady of Shalott.’


_701._ _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.


_702._ _Song of the Lotos-Eaters_

    There is sweet music here that softer falls
    Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
    Or night-dews on still waters between walls
    Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
    Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
    Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
    Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
    Here are cool mosses deep,
    And thro’ the moss the ivies creep,
    And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
    And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

    Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,
    And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
    While all things else have rest from weariness?
    All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
    We only toil, who are the first of things,
    And make perpetual moan,
    Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
    Nor ever fold our wings,
    And cease from wanderings,
    Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;
    Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
    ‘There is no joy but calm!’--
    Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?


    Lo! in the middle of the wood,
    The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud
    With winds upon the branch, and there
    Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
    Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon
    Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
    Falls, and floats adown the air.
    Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light,
    The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
    Drops in a silent autumn night.
    All its allotted length of days,
    The flower ripens in its place,
    Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
    Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

    Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
    Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
    Death is the end of life; ah, why
    Should life all labour be?
    Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
    And in a little while our lips are dumb.
    Let us alone. What is it that will last?
    All things are taken from us, and become
    Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.
    Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
    To war with evil? Is there any peace
    In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
    All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
    In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
    Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

    How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
    With half-shut eyes ever to seem
    Falling asleep in a half-dream!
    To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
    Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
    To hear each other’s whisper’d speech;
    Eating the Lotos day by day,
    To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
    And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
    To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
    To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
    To muse and brood and live again in memory,
    With those old faces of our infancy
    Heap’d over with a mound of grass,
    Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!

    Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
    And dear the last embraces of our wives
    And their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change;
    For surely now our household hearths are cold:
    Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
    And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
    Or else the island princes over-bold
    Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
    Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy,
    And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
    Is there confusion in the little isle?
    Let what is broken so remain.
    The Gods are hard to reconcile:
    ’Tis hard to settle order once again.
    There _is_ confusion worse than death,
    Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
    Long labour unto agèd breath,
    Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars
    And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
    But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
    How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
    With half-dropt eyelids still,
    Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
    To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
    His waters from the purple hill--
    To hear the dewy echoes calling
    From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twinèd vine--
    To watch the emerald-colour’d water falling
    Thro’ many a wov’n acanthus-wreath divine!
    Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
    Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine.

    The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
    The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
    All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
    Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone
    Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
    We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
    Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
    Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
    Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
    In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
    On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
    For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d
    Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d
    Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
    Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
    Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
    Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
    But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
    Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
    Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;
    Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
    Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
    Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
    Till they perish and they suffer--some, ’tis whisper’d--down in hell
    Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
    Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
    Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
    Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
    O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.


_703._ _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!


_704._ _Blow, Bugle, blow_

        The splendour falls on castle walls
          And snowy summits old in story:
        The long light shakes across the lakes,
          And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
    Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
    Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.


        O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
          And thinner, clearer, farther going!
        O sweet and far from cliff and scar
          The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
    Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
    Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

        O love, they die in yon rich sky,
          They faint on hill or field or river:
        Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
          And grow for ever and for ever.
    Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
    And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.


_705._ _Summer Night_

    Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
    Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
    Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
    The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

      Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
    And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

      Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
    And all thy heart lies open unto me.

      Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
    A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

      Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
    And slips into the bosom of the lake:
    So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
    Into my bosom and be lost in me.


_706._ _Come down, O Maid_

    Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
    What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang).
    In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
    But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
    To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
    To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
    And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
    For Love is of the valley, come thou down
    And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
    Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
    Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
    Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
    With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
    Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
    Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
    That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
    To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
    But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
    To find him in the valley; let the wild
    Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
    The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
    Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
    That like a broken purpose waste in air:
    So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
    Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
    Arise to thee; the children call, and I
    Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
    Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
    Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,
    The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
    And murmuring of innumerable bees.


_707._ _From ‘In Memoriam’_

(ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM, MDCCCXXXIII)


I

    Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
        Sailest the placid ocean-plains
        With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
    Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.

    So draw him home to those that mourn
        In vain; a favourable speed
        Ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead
    Thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn.

    All night no ruder air perplex
        Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
        As our pure love, thro’ early light
    Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.

    Sphere all your lights around, above;
        Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
        Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
    My friend, the brother of my love;

    My Arthur, whom I shall not see
        Till all my widow’d race be run;
        Dear as the mother to the son,
    More than my brothers are to me.


II

    I hear the noise about thy keel;
        I hear the bell struck in the night;
        I see the cabin-window bright;
    I see the sailor at the wheel.


    Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife,
        And travell’d men from foreign lands;
        And letters unto trembling hands;
    And, thy dark freight, a vanish’d life.

    So bring him: we have idle dreams:
        This look of quiet flatters thus
        Our home-bred fancies: O to us,
    The fools of habit, sweeter seems

    To rest beneath the clover sod,
        That takes the sunshine and the rains,
        Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
    The chalice of the grapes of God;

    Than if with thee the roaring wells
        Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine;
        And hands so often clasp’d in mine,
    Should toss with tangle and with shells.


III

    Calm is the morn without a sound,
        Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
        And only thro’ the faded leaf
    The chestnut pattering to the ground:

    Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
        And on these dews that drench the furze,
        And all the silvery gossamers
    That twinkle into green and gold:

    Calm and still light on yon great plain
        That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
        And crowded farms and lessening towers,
    To mingle with the bounding main:


    Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
        These leaves that redden to the fall;
        And in my heart, if calm at all,
    If any calm, a calm despair:

    Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
        And waves that sway themselves in rest,
        And dead calm in that noble breast
    Which heaves but with the heaving deep.


IV

    To-night the winds begin to rise
        And roar from yonder dropping day:
        The last red leaf is whirl’d away,
    The rooks are blown about the skies;

    The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d,
        The cattle huddled on the lea;
        And wildly dash’d on tower and tree
    The sunbeam strikes along the world:

    And but for fancies, which aver
        That all thy motions gently pass
        Athwart a plane of molten glass,
    I scarce could brook the strain and stir

    That makes the barren branches loud;
        And but for fear it is not so,
        The wild unrest that lives in woe
    Would dote and pore on yonder cloud

    That rises upward always higher,
        And onward drags a labouring breast,
        And topples round the dreary west,
    A looming bastion fringed with fire.


V

    Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
        Compell’d thy canvas, and my prayer
        Was as the whisper of an air
    To breathe thee over lonely seas.

    For I in spirit saw thee move
        Thro’ circles of the bounding sky,
        Week after week: the days go by:
    Come quick, thou bringest all I love.

    Henceforth, wherever thou mayst roam
        My blessing, like a line of light,
        Is on the waters day and night,
    And like a beacon guards thee home.

    So may whatever tempest mars
        Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark;
        And balmy drops in summer dark
    Slide from the bosom of the stars.

    So kind an office hath been done,
        Such precious relics brought by thee;
        The dust of him I shall not see
    Till all my widow’d race be run.


VI

    Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
        Or breaking into song by fits,
        Alone, alone, to where he sits,
    The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot,

    Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
        I wander, often falling lame,
        And looking back to whence I came,
    Or on to where the pathway leads;
    And crying, How changed from where it ran
        Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb;
        But all the lavish hills would hum
    The murmur of a happy Pan:

    When each by turns was guide to each,
        And Fancy light from Fancy caught,
        And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
    Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;

    And all we met was fair and good,
        And all was good that Time could bring,
        And all the secret of the Spring
    Moved in the chambers of the blood;

    And many an old philosophy
        On Argive heights divinely sang,
        And round us all the thicket rang
    To many a flute of Arcady.


VII

    How fares it with the happy dead?
        For here the man is more and more;
        But he forgets the days before
    God shut the doorways of his head.

    The days have vanish’d, tone and tint,
        And yet perhaps the hoarding sense
        Gives out at times (he knows not whence)
    A little flash, a mystic hint;

    And in the long harmonious years
        (If Death so taste Lethean springs)
        May some dim touch of earthly things
    Surprise thee ranging with thy peers.


    If such a dreamy touch should fall,
        O turn thee round, resolve the doubt;
        My guardian angel will speak out
    In that high place, and tell thee all.


VIII

    The wish, that of the living whole
        No life may fail beyond the grave,
        Derives it not from what we have
    The likest God within the soul?

    Are God and Nature then at strife,
        That Nature lends such evil dreams?
        So careful of the type she seems,
    So careless of the single life;

    That I, considering everywhere
        Her secret meaning in her deeds,
        And finding that of fifty seeds
    She often brings but one to bear,

    I falter where I firmly trod,
        And falling with my weight of cares
        Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
    That slope thro’ darkness up to God,

    I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
        And gather dust and chaff, and call
        To what I feel is Lord of all,
    And faintly trust the larger hope.


IX

    ‘So careful of the type?’ but no.
        From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone
        She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone
    I care for nothing, all shall go.


    Thou makest thine appeal to me:
        I bring to life, I bring to death:
        The spirit does but mean the breath:
    I know no more.’ And he, shall he,

    Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
        Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
        Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
    Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

    Who trusted God was love indeed
        And love Creation’s final law--
        Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
    With ravine, shriek’d against his creed--

    Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
        Who battled for the True, the Just,
        Be blown about the desert dust,
    Or seal’d within the iron hills?

    No more? A monster then, a dream,
        A discord. Dragons of the prime,
        That tare each other in their slime,
    Were mellow music matched with him.

    O life as futile, then as frail!
        O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
        What hope of answer, or redress?
    Behind the veil, behind the veil.


X

    Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway,
        The tender blossom flutter down;
        Unloved, that beech will gather brown,
    This maple burn itself away;
    Unloved, the sunflower, shining fair,
        Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
        And many a rose-carnation feed
    With summer spice the humming air;

    Unloved, by many a sandy bar,
        The brook shall babble down the plain,
        At noon or when the lesser wain
    Is twisting round the polar star;

    Uncared for, gird the windy grove,
        And flood the haunts of hern and crake;
        Or into silver arrows break
    The sailing moon in creek and cove;

    Till from the garden and the wild
        A fresh association blow,
        And year by year the landscape grow
    Familiar to the stranger’s child;

    As year by year the labourer tills
        His wonted glebe, or lops the glades;
        And year by year our memory fades
    From all the circle of the hills.


XI

    Now fades the last long streak of snow,
        Now burgeons every maze of quick
        About the flowering squares, and thick
    By ashen roots the violets blow.

    Now rings the woodland loud and long,
        The distance takes a lovelier hue,
        And drown’d in yonder living blue
    The lark becomes a sightless song.


    Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
        The flocks are whiter down the vale,
        And milkier every milky sail
    On winding stream or distant sea;

    Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
        In yonder greening gleam, and fly
        The happy birds, that change their sky
    To build and brood; that live their lives

    From land to land; and in my breast
        Spring wakens too; and my regret
        Becomes an April violet,
    And buds and blossoms like the rest.


XII

    Love is and was my Lord and King,
        And in his presence I attend
        To hear the tidings of my friend,
    Which every hour his couriers bring.

    Love is and was my King and Lord,
        And will be, tho’ as yet I keep
        Within his court on earth, and sleep
    Encompass’d by his faithful guard,

    And hear at times a sentinel
        Who moves about from place to place,
        And whispers to the worlds of space,
    In the deep night, that all is well.


_708._ _Maud_

    Come into the garden, Maud,
      For the black bat, Night, has flown,
    Come into the garden, Maud,
      I am here at the gate alone;
    And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
      And the musk of the roses blown.

    For a breeze of morning moves,
      And the planet of Love is on high,
    Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
      On a bed of daffodil sky,
    To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
      To faint in his light, and to die.

    All night have the roses heard
      The flute, violin, bassoon;
    All night has the casement jessamine stirr’d
      To the dancers dancing in tune;
    Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
      And a hush with the setting moon.

    I said to the lily, ‘There is but one
      With whom she has heart to be gay.
    When will the dancers leave her alone?
      She is weary of dance and play.’
    Now half to the setting moon are gone,
      And half to the rising day;
    Low on the sand and loud on the stone
      The last wheel echoes away.

    I said to the rose, ‘The brief night goes
      In babble and revel and wine.


    O young lord-lover, what sighs are those
      For one that will never be thine?
    But mine, but mine,’ so I sware to the rose,
      ‘For ever and ever, mine.’

    And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
      As the music clash’d in the hall;
    And long by the garden lake I stood,
      For I heard your rivulet fall
    From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,
      Our wood, that is dearer than all;

    From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
      That whenever a March-wind sighs
    He sets the jewel-print of your feet
      In violets blue as your eyes,
    To the woody hollows in which we meet
      And the valleys of Paradise.

    The slender acacia would not shake
      One long milk-bloom on the tree;
    The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
      As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
    But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
      Knowing your promise to me;
    The lilies and roses were all awake,
      They sigh’d for the dawn and thee.

    Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
      Come hither, the dances are done,
    In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
      Queen lily and rose in one;
    Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls.
      To the flowers, and be their sun.


    There has fallen a splendid tear
      From the passion-flower at the gate.
    She is coming, my dove, my dear;
      She is coming, my life, my fate;
    The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near;’
      And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late,’
    The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear;’
      And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’

    She is coming, my own, my sweet;
      Were it ever so airy a tread,
    My heart would hear her and beat,
      Were it earth in an earthy bed;
    My dust would hear her and beat,
      Had I lain for a century dead;
    Would start and tremble under her feet,
      And blossom in purple and red.


_709._ _O that ’twere possible_

    O that ’twere possible
    After long grief and pain
    To find the arms of my true love
    Round me once again!...

    A shadow flits before me,
    Not thou, but like to thee:
    Ah, Christ! that it were possible
    For one short hour to see
    The souls we loved, that they might tell us
    What and where they be!




RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON

1809-1885


_710._ _Shadows_

    They seem’d, to those who saw them meet,
      The casual friends of every day;
    Her smile was undisturb’d and sweet,
      His courtesy was free and gay.

    But yet if one the other’s name
      In some unguarded moment heard,
    The heart you thought so calm and tame
      Would struggle like a captured bird:

    And letters of mere formal phrase
      Were blister’d with repeated tears,--
    And this was not the work of days,
      But had gone on for years and years!

    Alas, that love was not too strong
      For maiden shame and manly pride!
    Alas, that they delay’d so long
     The goal of mutual bliss beside!

    Yet what no chance could then reveal,
      And neither would be first to own,
    Let fate and courage now conceal,
      When truth could bring remorse alone.




HENRY ALFORD

1810-1871


_711._ _The Bride_

    ‘Rise,’ said the Master, ‘come unto the feast.’
      She heard the call and rose with willing feet;
      But thinking it not otherwise than meet
    For such a bidding to put on her best,
    She is gone from us for a few short hours
      Into her bridal closet, there to wait
      For the unfolding of the palace gate
    That gives her entrance to the blissful bowers.
    We have not seen her yet, though we have been
      Full often to her chamber door, and oft
    Have listen’d underneath the postern green,
      And laid fresh flowers, and whisper’d short and soft.
    But she hath made no answer, and the day
    From the clear west is fading fast away.




SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON

1810-1886


_712._ _Cean Dubh Deelish_

    Put your head, darling, darling, darling,
      Your darling black head my heart above;
    O mouth of honey, with thyme for fragrance,
      Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love?

    O many and many a young girl for me is pining.
      Letting her locks of gold to the cold wind free,
    For me, the foremost of our gay young fellows;
      But I’d leave a hundred, pure love, for thee!

     _712._ _Cean dubh deelish_] darling black head.

    Then put your head, darling, darling, darling,
      Your darling black head my heart above;
    O mouth of honey, with thyme for fragrance,
      Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love?


_713._ _Cashel of Munster_

FROM THE IRISH

    I’d wed you without herds, without money or rich array.
    And I’d wed you on a dewy morn at day-dawn gray;
    My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far away
    In Cashel town, tho’ the bare deal board were our marriage-bed this day!

    O fair maid, remember the green hill-side,
    Remember how I hunted about the valleys wide;
    Time now has worn me; my locks are turn’d to gray;
    The year is scarce and I am poor--but send me not, love, away!

    O deem not my blood is of base strain, my girl;
    O think not my birth was as the birth of a churl;
    Marry me and prove me, and say soon you will
    That noble blood is written on my right side still.

    My purse holds no red gold, no coin of the silver white;
    No herds are mine to drive through the long twilight;
    But the pretty girl that would take me, all bare tho’ I be and lone,
    O, I’d take her with me kindly to the county Tyrone!

    O my girl, I can see ’tis in trouble you are;
    And O my girl, I see ’tis your people’s reproach you bear!
    --_I am a girl in trouble for his sake with whom I fly,_
    _And, O, may no other maiden know such reproach as I!_


_714._ _The Fair Hills of Ireland_

FROM THE IRISH

    A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer,
            _Uileacan dubh O!_
    Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley ear;
            _Uileacan dubh O!_
    There is honey in the trees where her misty vales expand,
    And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fann’d,
    There is dew at high noontide there, and springs i’ the yellow sand,
             On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

    Curl’d he is and ringleted, and plaited to the knee--
            _Uileacan dubh O!_
    Each captain who comes sailing across the Irish Sea;
            _Uileacan dubh O!_
    And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,
    Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,
    And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command,
            For the fair hills of holy Ireland.

    Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground,
            _Uileacan dubh O!_
    The butter and the cream do wondrously abound;
            _Uileacan dubh O!_
    The cresses on the water and the sorrels are at hand,
    And the cuckoo’s calling daily his note of music bland,
    And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song i’ the forests grand,
            On the fair hills of holy Ireland.




ROBERT BROWNING

1812-1889


_715._ _Song from ‘Paracelsus’_

    Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes
      Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,
    Smear’d with dull nard an Indian wipes
      From out her hair: such balsam falls
      Down sea-side mountain pedestals,
    From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,
    Spent with the vast and howling main,
    To treasure half their island-gain.

    And strew faint sweetness from some old
      Egyptian’s fine worm-eaten shroud
    Which breaks to dust when once unroll’d;
      Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
      From closet long to quiet vow’d,
    With moth’d and dropping arras hung,
    Mouldering her lute and books among,
    As when a queen, long dead, was young.


_716._ _The Wanderers_

    Over the sea our galleys went,
      With cleaving prows in order brave
    To a speeding wind and a bounding wave--
      A gallant armament:
    Each bark built out of a forest-tree
      Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
    And nail’d all over the gaping sides,
    Within and without, with black bull-hides,
    Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
    To bear the playful billows’ game;
    So, each good ship was rude to see,
    Rude and bare to the outward view.
      But each upbore a stately tent
    Where cedar pales in scented row
    Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
    And an awning droop’d the mast below,
    In fold on fold of the purple fine,
    That neither noontide nor star-shine
    Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,
      Might pierce the regal tenement.
    When the sun dawn’d, O, gay and glad
    We set the sail and plied the oar;
    But when the night-wind blew like breath,
    For joy of one day’s voyage more,
    We sang together on the wide sea,
    Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;
    Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
    Each helm made sure by the twilight star,
    And in a sleep as calm as death,
    We, the voyagers from afar,
      Lay stretch’d along, each weary crew
    In a circle round its wondrous tent
    Whence gleam’d soft light and curl’d rich scent,
      And with light and perfume, music too:
    So the stars wheel’d round, and the darkness past,
    And at morn we started beside the mast,
    And still each ship was sailing fast!

    Now, one morn, land appear’d--a speck
    Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky--
    ‘Avoid it,’ cried our pilot, ‘check
      The shout, restrain the eager eye!’
    But the heaving sea was black behind
    For many a night and many a day,
    And land, though but a rock, drew nigh
    So we broke the cedar pales away,
    Let the purple awning flap in the wind,
      And a statue bright was on every deck!
    We shouted, every man of us,
    And steer’d right into the harbour thus,
    With pomp and pæan glorious.

    A hundred shapes of lucid stone!
      All day we built its shrine for each,
    A shrine of rock for every one,
    Nor paused till in the westering sun
      We sat together on the beach
    To sing because our task was done;
    When lo! what shouts and merry songs!
    What laughter all the distance stirs!
    A loaded raft with happy throngs
    Of gentle islanders!
    ‘Our isles are just at hand,’ they cried,
      ‘Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping;
    Our temple-gates are open’d wide,
      Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping
    For these majestic forms’--they cried.
    O, then we awoke with sudden start
    From our deep dream, and knew, too late,
    How bare the rock, how desolate,
    Which had received our precious freight:
      Yet we call’d out--‘Depart!
    Our gifts, once given, must here abide:
      Our work is done; we have no heart
    To mar our work,’--we cried.


_717._ _Thus the Mayne glideth_

    Thus the Mayne glideth
    Where my Love abideth;
    Sleep’s no softer: it proceeds
    On through lawns, on through meads,
    On and on, whate’er befall.
    Meandering and musical,
    Though the niggard pasturage
    Bears not on its shaven ledge
    Aught but weeds and waving grasses
    To view the river as it passes,
    Save here and there a scanty patch
    Of primroses too faint to catch
    A weary bee.... And scarce it pushes
    Its gentle way through strangling rushes
    Where the glossy kingfisher
    Flutters when noon-heats are near,
    Glad the shelving banks to shun,
    Red and steaming in the sun,
    Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat
    Burrows, and the speckled stoat;
    Where the quick sandpipers flit
    In and out the marl and grit
    That seems to breed them, brown as they;
    Naught disturbs its quiet way,
    Save some lazy stork that springs,
    Trailing it with legs and wings,
    Whom the shy fox from the hill
    Rouses, creep he ne’er so still.


_718._ _Pippa’s Song_

    The year’s at the spring,
    And day’s at the morn;
    Morning’s at seven;
    The hill-side’s dew-pearl’d;
    The lark’s on the wing;
    The snail’s on the thorn;
    God’s in His heaven--
    All’s right with the world!


_719._ _You’ll love Me yet_

    You’ll love me yet!--and I can tarry
      Your love’s protracted growing:
    June rear’d 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!


_720._ _Porphyria’s Lover_

    The rain set early in to-night,
      The sullen wind was soon awake,
    It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
      And did its worst to vex the lake:
      I listen’d with heart fit to break.
    When glided in Porphyria; straight
      She shut the cold out and the storm,
    And kneel’d and made the cheerless grate
      Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
      Which done, she rose, and from her form
    Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
      And laid her soil’d gloves by, untied
    Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
      And, last, she sat down by my side
      And call’d me. When no voice replied,
    She put my arm about her waist,
      And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
    And all her yellow hair displaced,
      And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
      And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,
    Murmuring how she loved me--she
      Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,
    To set its struggling passion free
      From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
      And give herself to me for ever.
    But passion sometimes would prevail,
      Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain
    A sudden thought of one so pale
      For love of her, and all in vain:
      So, she was come through wind and rain.
    Be sure I look’d up at her eyes
      Happy and proud; at last I knew
    Porphyria worshipp’d me; surprise
      Made my heart swell, and still it grew
      While I debated what to do.
    That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
      Perfectly pure and good: I found
    A thing to do, and all her hair
      In one long yellow string I wound
      Three times her little throat around,
    And strangled her. No pain felt she;
      I am quite sure she felt no pain.
    As a shut bud that holds a bee,
      I warily oped her lids: again
      Laugh’d the blue eyes without a stain.
    And I untighten’d next the tress
      About her neck; her cheek once more
    Blush’d bright beneath my burning kiss:
      I propp’d her head up as before,
      Only, this time my shoulder bore
    Her head, which droops upon it still:
      The smiling rosy little head,
    So glad it has its utmost will,
      That all it scorn’d at once is fled,
      And I, its love, am gain’d instead!
    Porphyria’s love: she guess’d not how
      Her darling one wish would be heard.
    And thus we sit together now,
      And all night long we have not stirr’d,
      And yet God has not said a word!


_721._ _Song_

    Nay but you, who do not love her,
    Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
    Holds earth aught--speak truth--above her?
      Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
    And this last fairest tress of all,
    So fair, see, ere I let it fall?


    Because, you spend your lives in praising;
      To praise, you search the wide world over:
    Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
      If earth holds aught--speak truth--above her?
    Above this tress, and this, I touch
    But cannot praise, I love so much!


_722._ _Earl Mertoun’s Song_

    There’s a woman like a dewdrop, she’s so purer than the purest;
    And her noble heart’s the noblest, yes, and her sure faith’s the surest:
    And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre
    Hid i’ the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster,
    Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck’s rose-misted marble:
    Then her voice’s music ... call it the well’s bubbling, the bird’s warble!

    And this woman says, ‘My days were sunless and my nights were moonless,
    Parch’d the pleasant April herbage, and the lark’s heart’s outbreak tuneless,
    If you loved me not!’ And I who (ah, for words of flame!) adore her,
    Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her--
    I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,
    And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!


_723._ _In a Gondola_

    The moth’s kiss, first!
    Kiss me as if you made me believe
    You were not sure, this eve,
    How my face, your flower, had pursed
    Its petals up; so, here and there
    You brush it, till I grow aware
    Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.

    The bee’s kiss, now!
    Kiss me as if you enter’d gay
    My heart at some noonday,
    A bud that dares not disallow
    The claim, so all is render’d up,
    And passively its shatter’d cup
    Over your head to sleep I bow.


_724._ _Meeting at Night_

    The gray sea and the long black land;
    And the yellow half-moon large and low;
    And the startled little waves that leap
    In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
    As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
    And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

    Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
    Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
    A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
    And blue spurt of a lighted match,
    And a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,
    Than the two hearts beating each to each!


_725._ _Parting at Morning_

    Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
    And the sun look’d over the mountain’s rim
    And straight was a path of gold for him,
    And the need of a world of men for me.


_726._ _The Lost Mistress_

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

    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 gray.

    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:

    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!--

    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!


_727._ _The Last Ride together_

    I said--Then, dearest, since ’tis so,
    Since now at length my fate I know,
    Since nothing all my love avails,
    Since all, my life seem’d meant for, fails,
      Since this was written and needs must be--
    My whole heart rises up to bless
    Your name in pride and thankfulness!
    Take back the hope you gave,--I claim
    Only a memory of the same,
    --And this beside, if you will not blame;
      Your leave for one more last ride with me.

    My mistress bent that brow of hers,
    Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
    When pity would be softening through,
    Fix’d me a breathing-while or two
      With life or death in the balance: right!
    The blood replenish’d me again;
    My last thought was at least not vain:
    I and my mistress, side by side
    Shall be together, breathe and ride,
    So, one day more am I deified.
      Who knows but the world may end to-night?

    Hush! if you saw some western cloud
    All billowy-bosom’d, over-bow’d
    By many benedictions--sun’s
    And moon’s and evening-star’s at once--
      And so, you, looking and loving best,
    Conscious grew, your passion drew
    Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,
    Down on you, near and yet more near,
    Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!--
    Thus leant she and linger’d--joy and fear!
      Thus lay she a moment on my breast.

    Then we began to ride. My soul
    Smooth’d itself out, a long-cramp’d scroll
    Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
    Past hopes already lay behind.
      What need to strive with a life awry?
    Had I said that, had I done this,
    So might I gain, so might I miss.
    Might she have loved me? just as well
    She might have hated, who can tell!
    Where had I been now if the worst befell?
      And here we are riding, she and I.

    Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
    Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
    We rode; it seem’d my spirit flew,
    Saw other regions, cities new,
      As the world rush’d by on either side.
    I thought,--All labour, yet no less
    Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
    Look at the end of work, contrast
    The petty done, the undone vast,
    This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
      I hoped she would love me; here we ride.

    What hand and brain went ever pair’d?
    What heart alike conceived and dared?
    What act proved all its thought had been?
    What will but felt the fleshly screen?
      We ride and I see her bosom heave.
    There’s many a crown for who can reach.
    Ten lines, a statesman’s life in each!
    The flag stuck on a heap of bones,
    A soldier’s doing! what atones?
    They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.
      My riding is better, by their leave.

    What does it all mean, poet? Well,
    Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
    What we felt only; you express’d
    You hold things beautiful the best,
      And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
    ’Tis something, nay ’tis much: but then,
    Have you yourself what’s best for men?
    Are you--poor, sick, old ere your time--
    Nearer one whit your own sublime
    Than we who never have turn’d a rhyme?
      Sing, riding’s a joy! For me, I ride.

    And you, great sculptor--so, you gave
    A score of years to Art, her slave,
    And that’s your Venus, whence we turn
    To yonder girl that fords the burn!
      You acquiesce, and shall I repine?
    What, man of music, you grown gray
    With notes and nothing else to say,
    Is this your sole praise from a friend,
    ‘Greatly his opera’s strains intend,
    But in music we know how fashions end!’
      I gave my youth: but we ride, in fine.

    Who knows what’s fit for us? Had fate
    Proposed bliss here should sublimate
    My being--had I sign’d the bond--
    Still one must lead some life beyond,
      Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.
    This foot once planted on the goal,
    This glory-garland round my soul,
    Could I descry such? Try and test!
    I sink back shuddering from the quest.
    Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?
      Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.

    And yet--she has not spoke so long!
    What if heaven be that, fair and strong
    At life’s best, with our eyes upturn’d
    Whither life’s flower is first discern’d,
      We, fix’d so, ever should so abide?
    What if we still ride on, we two
    With life for ever old yet new,
    Changed not in kind but in degree,
    The instant made eternity,--
    And heaven just prove that I and she
      Ride, ride together, for ever ride?


_728._ _Misconceptions_

        This is a spray the Bird clung to,
          Making it blossom with pleasure,
        Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,
          Fit for her nest and her treasure.
          O, what a hope beyond measure
    Was the poor spray’s, which the flying feet hung to,--
    So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!


        This is a heart the Queen leant on,
          Thrill’d in a minute erratic,
        Ere the true bosom she bent on,
          Meet for love’s regal dalmatic.
          O, what a fancy ecstatic
    Was the poor heart’s, ere the wanderer went on--
    Love to be saved for it, proffer’d to, spent on!


_729._ _Home-thoughts, from Abroad_

    O to be in England
    Now that April’s there,
    And whoever wakes in England
    Sees, some morning, unaware,
    That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
    Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
    While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
    In England--now!

    And after April, when May follows,
    And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
    Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
    Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
    Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray’s edge--
    That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
    Lest you should think he never could recapture
    The first fine careless rapture!
    And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
    All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
    The buttercups, the little children’s dower
    --Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!


_730._ _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 dawn’d Gibraltar grand and gray;
    ‘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.




WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

1812-1890


_731._ _The Witch’s Ballad_

    O I hae come from far away,
      From a warm land far away,
    A southern land across the sea,
    With sailor-lads about the mast,
    Merry and canny, and kind to me.

    And I hae been to yon town
      To try my luck in yon town;
    Nort, and Mysie, Elspie too.
    Right braw we were to pass the gate,
    Wi’ gowden clasps on girdles blue.

    Mysie smiled wi’ miminy mouth,
      Innocent mouth, miminy mouth;

     _731._ miminy] prim, demure.

    Elspie wore a scarlet gown,
    Nort’s grey eyes were unco’ gleg.
    My Castile comb was like a crown.

    We walk’d abreast all up the street,
      Into the market up the street;
    Our hair with marigolds was wound,
    Our bodices with love-knots laced,
    Our merchandise with tansy bound.

    Nort had chickens, I had cocks,
      Gamesome cocks, loud-crowing cocks;
    Mysie ducks, and Elspie drakes,--
    For a wee groat or a pound;
    We lost nae time wi’ gives and takes.

    --Lost nae time, for well we knew,
      In our sleeves full well we knew,
    When the gloaming came that night,
    Duck nor drake, nor hen nor cock
    Would be found by candle-light.

    And when our chaffering all was done,
      All was paid for, sold and done,
    We drew a glove on ilka hand,
    We sweetly curtsied, each to each,
    And deftly danced a saraband.

    The market-lassies look’d and laugh’d,
      Left their gear, and look’d and laugh’d;
    They made as they would join the game,
    But soon their mithers, wild and wud,
    With whack and screech they stopp’d the same.

     gleg] bright, sharp. wud] mad.


    Sae loud the tongues o’ randies grew,
      The flytin’ and the skirlin’ grew,
    At all the windows in the place,
    Wi’ spoons or knives, wi’ needle or awl,
    Was thrust out every hand and face.

    And down each stair they throng’d anon,
      Gentle, semple, throng’d anon:
    Souter and tailor, frowsy Nan,
    The ancient widow young again,
    Simpering behind her fan.

    Without a choice, against their will,
      Doited, dazed, against their will,
    The market lassie and her mither,
    The farmer and his husbandman,
    Hand in hand dance a’ thegither.

    Slow at first, but faster soon,
      Still increasing, wild and fast,
    Hoods and mantles, hats and hose,
    Blindly doff’d and cast away,
    Left them naked, heads and toes.

    They would have torn us limb from limb,
      Dainty limb from dainty limb;
    But never one of them could win
    Across the line that I had drawn
    With bleeding thumb a-widdershin.

    But there was Jeff the provost’s son,
      Jeff the provost’s only son;

     randies] viragoes. flytin’] scolding. skirlin’] shrieking. souter]
     cobbler. doited] mazed. a-widdershin] the wrong way of the sun: or
     E. to W. through N.

    There was Father Auld himsel’,
    The Lombard frae the hostelry,
    And the lawyer Peter Fell.

    All goodly men we singled out,
      Waled them well, and singled out,
    And drew them by the left hand in;
    Mysie the priest, and Elspie won
    The Lombard, Nort the lawyer carle,
    I mysel’ the provost’s son.

    Then, with cantrip kisses seven,
      Three times round with kisses seven,
    Warp’d and woven there spun we
    Arms and legs and flaming hair,
    Like a whirlwind on the sea.

    Like a wind that sucks the sea,
      Over and in and on the sea,
    Good sooth it was a mad delight;
    And every man of all the four
    Shut his eyes and laugh’d outright.

    Laugh’d as long as they had breath,
      Laugh’d while they had sense or breath;
    And close about us coil’d a mist
    Of gnats and midges, wasps and flies,
    Like the whirlwind shaft it rist.

    Drawn up I was right off my feet,
      Into the mist and off my feet;
    And, dancing on each chimney-top,
    I saw a thousand darling imps
    Keeping time with skip and hop.

     waled] chose. cantrip] magic.

    And on the provost’s brave ridge-tile,
      On the provost’s grand ridge-tile,
    The Blackamoor first to master me
    I saw, I saw that winsome smile,
    The mouth that did my heart beguile,
    And spoke the great Word over me,
    In the land beyond the sea.

    I call’d his name, I call’d aloud,
      Alas! I call’d on him aloud;
    And then he fill’d his hand with stour,
    And threw it towards me in the air;
    My mouse flew out, I lost my pow’r!

    My lusty strength, my power were gone;
      Power was gone, and all was gone.
    He will not let me love him more!
    Of bell and whip and horse’s tail
    He cares not if I find a store.

    But I am proud if he is fierce!
      I am as proud as he is fierce;
    I’ll turn about and backward go,
    If I meet again that Blackamoor,
    And he’ll help us then, for he shall know
    I seek another paramour.

    And we’ll gang once more to yon town,
      Wi’ better luck to yon town;
    We’ll walk in silk and cramoisie,
    And I shall wed the provost’s son
    My lady of the town I’ll be!

     stour] dust. cramoisie] crimson.

    For I was born a crown’d king’s child,
      Born and nursed a king’s child,
    King o’ a land ayont the sea,
    Where the Blackamoor kiss’d me first,
    And taught me art and glamourie.

    Each one in her wame shall hide
      Her hairy mouse, her wary mouse.
    Fed on madwort and agramie,--
    Wear amber beads between her breasts,
    And blind-worm’s skin about her knee.

    The Lombard shall be Elspie’s man,
      Elspie’s gowden husband-man;
    Nort shall take the lawyer’s hand;
    The priest shall swear another vow:
    We’ll dance again the saraband!

     ayont] beyond. glamourie] wizardry.




AUBREY DE VERE

1814-1902


_732._ _Serenade_

    Softly, O midnight Hours!
        Move softly o’er the bowers
    Where lies in happy sleep a girl so fair!
        For ye have power, men say,
        Our hearts in sleep to sway,
    And cage cold fancies in a moonlight snare.
        Round ivory neck and arm
        Enclasp a separate charm;
    Hang o’er her poised, but breathe nor sigh nor prayer
        Silently ye may smile,
        But hold your breath the while,
    And let the wind sweep back your cloudy hair!
        Bend down your glittering urns,
        Ere yet the dawn returns,
    And star with dew the lawn her feet shall tread;
        Upon the air rain balm,
        Bid all the woods be calm,
    Ambrosial dreams with healthful slumbers wed;
        That so the Maiden may
        With smiles your care repay,
    When from her couch she lifts her golden head;
        Waking with earliest birds,
        Ere yet the misty herds
    Leave warm ’mid the gray grass their dusky bed.


_733._ _Sorrow_

    Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
    God’s messenger sent down to thee; do thou
      With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;
    And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
    Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;
      Then lay before him all thou hast; allow
      No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
    Or mar thy hospitality; no wave
    Of mortal tumult to obliterate
      The soul’s marmoreal calmness: Grief should be,
    Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;
      Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;
    Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
    Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.




GEORGE FOX

1815-?


_734._ _The County of Mayo_

FROM THE IRISH OF THOMAS LAVELLE

    On the deck of Patrick Lynch’s boat I sat in woful plight,
    Through my sighing all the weary day and weeping all the night;
    Were it not that full of sorrow from my people forth I go,
    By the blessèd sun! ’tis royally I’d sing thy praise, Mayo!

    When I dwelt at home in plenty, and my gold did much abound,
    In the company of fair young maids the Spanish ale went round--
    ’Tis a bitter change from those gay days that now I’m forced to go
    And must leave my bones in Santa Cruz, far from my own Mayo.

    They are alter’d girls in Irrul now; ’tis proud they’re grown and high,
    With their hair-bags and their top-knots, for I pass their buckles by--
    But it’s little now I heed their airs, for God will have it so,
    That I must depart for foreign lands and leave my sweet Mayo.

    ’Tis my grief that Patrick Loughlin is not Earl of Irrul still,
    And that Brian Duff no longer rules as Lord upon the hill:
    And that Colonel Hugh McGrady should be lying dead and low,
    And I sailing, sailing swiftly from the county of Mayo.




EMILY BRONTË

1818-1848


_735._ _My Lady’s Grave_

    The linnet in the rocky dells,
      The moor-lark in the air,
    The bee among the heather bells
      That hide my lady fair:

    The wild deer browse above her breast;
      The wild birds raise their brood;
    And they, her smiles of love caress’d,
      Have left her solitude!

    I ween that when the grave’s dark wall
      Did first her form retain,
    They thought their hearts could ne’er recall
      The light of joy again.

    They thought the tide of grief would flow
      Uncheck’d through future years;
    But where is all their anguish now,
      And where are all their tears?

    Well, let them fight for honour’s breath,
      Or pleasure’s shade pursue--
    The dweller in the land of death
      Is changed and careless too.

    And if their eyes should watch and weep
      Till sorrow’s source were dry,
    She would not, in her tranquil sleep,
      Return a single sigh!

    Blow, west wind, by the lonely mound:
      And murmur, summer streams!
    There is no need of other sound
      To soothe my lady’s dreams.


_736._ _Remembrance_

    Cold in the earth--and the deep snow piled above thee,
      Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
    Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
      Sever’d at last by Time’s all-severing wave?

    Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
      Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
    Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
     Thy noble heart for ever, ever more?

    Cold in the earth--and fifteen wild Decembers
      From those brown hills have melted into spring:
    Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
      After such years of change and suffering!

    Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
      While the world’s tide is bearing me along;
    Other desires and other hopes beset me,
      Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

    No later light has lighten’d up my heaven,
      No second morn has ever shone for me;
    All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,
      All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.

    But when the days of golden dreams had perish’d,
      And even Despair was powerless to destroy;
    Then did I learn how existence could be cherish’d,
      Strengthen’d and fed without the aid of joy.

    Then did I check the tears of useless passion--
      Wean’d my young soul from yearning after thine;
    Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
      Down to that tomb already more than mine.


    And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
      Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;
    Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
      How could I seek the empty world again?


_737._ _The Prisoner_

    Still let my tyrants know, I am not doom’d to wear
    Year after year in gloom and desolate despair;
    A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
    And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

    He comes with Western winds, with evening’s wandering airs,
    With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars:
    Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
    And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.

    Desire for nothing known in my maturer years,
    When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears:
    When, if my spirit’s sky was full of flashes warm,
    I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunder-storm.

    But first, a hush of peace--a soundless calm descends;
    The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends.
    Mute music soothes my breast--unutter’d harmony
    That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.

    Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
    My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels;
    Its wings are almost free--its home, its harbour found,
    Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound.

    O dreadful is the check--intense the agony--
    When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
    When the pulse begins to throb--the brain to think again--
    The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.


    Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;
    The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless;
    And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine,
    If it but herald Death, the vision is divine.


_738._ _Last Lines_

      No coward soul is mine,
    No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
      I see Heaven’s glories shine,
    And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

      O God within my breast,
    Almighty, ever-present Deity!
      Life--that in me has rest,
    As I--undying Life--have power in Thee!

      Vain are the thousand creeds
    That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;
      Worthless as wither’d weeds,
    Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

      To waken doubt in one
    Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
      So surely anchor’d on
    The steadfast rock of immortality.

      With wide-embracing love
    Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
      Pervades and broods above,
    Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

      Though earth and man were gone,
    And suns and universes cease to be,
      And Thou were left alone,
    Every existence would exist in Thee.


      There is not room for Death,
    Nor atom that his might could render void:
      Thou--Thou art Being and Breath,
    And what Thou art may never be destroyed.




CHARLES KINGSLEY

1819-1875


_739._ _Airly Beacon_

    Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
      O the pleasant sight to see
    Shires and towns from Airly Beacon,
      While my love climb’d up to me!

    Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
      O the happy hours we lay
    Deep in fern on Airly Beacon,
      Courting through the summer’s day!

    Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
      O the weary haunt for me,
    All alone on Airly Beacon,
      With his baby on my knee!


_740._ _The Sands of Dee_

    ‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
        And call the cattle home,
        And call the cattle home,
        Across the sands of Dee.’
    The western wind was wild and dark with foam,
        And all alone went she.


    The western tide crept up along the sand,
        And o’er and o’er the sand,
        And round and round the sand,
        As far as eye could see.
    The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
        And never home came she.

    ‘O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair--
        A tress of golden hair,
        A drownèd maiden’s hair,
        Above the nets at sea?’
    Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
        Among the stakes of Dee.

    They row’d her in across the rolling foam,
        The cruel crawling foam,
        The cruel hungry foam,
        To her grave beside the sea.
    But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
        Across the sands of Dee.




ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

1819-1861


_741._ _Say not the Struggle Naught availeth_

    Say not the struggle naught 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 conceal’d,
    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!




WALT WHITMAN

1819-1892


_742._ _The Imprisoned Soul_

    At the last, tenderly,
    From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house,
    From the clasp of the knitted locks--from the keep of the well-closed doors,
    Let me be wafted.

    Let me glide noiselessly forth;
    With the key of softness unlock the locks--with a whisper
    Set ope the doors, O soul!

    Tenderly! be not impatient!
    (Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
    Strong is your hold, O love!)


_743._ _O Captain! My Captain!_

    O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
    The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
    The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
    While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
            But O heart! heart! heart!
              O the bleeding drops of red!
                Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                  Fallen cold and dead.

    O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
    Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
    For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths--for you the shores crowding,
    For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
            Here, Captain! dear father!
              This arm beneath your head!
                It is some dream that on the deck
                  You’ve fallen cold and dead.

    My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
    My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
    The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
    From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
            Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
              But I, with mournful tread,
                Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                  Fallen cold and dead.




JOHN RUSKIN

1819-1900


_744._ _Trust Thou Thy Love_

    Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet?
    Trust thou thy Love: if she be mute, is she not pure?
    Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet;
    Fail, Sun and Breath!--yet, for thy peace, She shall endure.




EBENEZER JONES

1820-1860


_745._ _When the World is burning_

    When the world is burning,
    Fired within, yet turning
      Round with face unscathed;
    Ere fierce flames, uprushing,
    O’er all lands leap, crushing,
      Till earth fall, fire-swathed;
    Up amidst the meadows,
    Gently through the shadows,
      Gentle flames will glide,
    Small, and blue, and golden.
    Though by bard beholden,
    When in calm dreams folden,--
      Calm his dreams will bide.

    Where the dance is sweeping,
    Through the greensward peeping,
      Shall the soft lights start;
    Laughing maids, unstaying,
    Deeming it trick-playing,
    High their robes upswaying,
      O’er the lights shall dart;
    And the woodland haunter
    Shall not cease to saunter
      When, far down some glade,
    Of the great world’s burning,
    One soft flame upturning
    Seems, to his discerning,
      Crocus in the shade.




FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON

1821-1895


_746._ _At Her Window_

    Beating Heart! we come again
      Where my Love reposes:
    This is Mabel’s window-pane;
      These are Mabel’s roses.

    Is she nested? Does she kneel
      In the twilight stilly,
    Lily clad from throat to heel,
      She, my virgin Lily?

    Soon the wan, the wistful stars,
      Fading, will forsake her;
    Elves of light, on beamy bars,
      Whisper then, and wake her.

    Let this friendly pebble plead
      At her flowery grating;
    If she hear me will she heed?
      _Mabel, I am waiting._

    Mabel will be deck’d anon,
      Zoned in bride’s apparel;
    Happy zone! O hark to yon
      Passion-shaken carol!

    Sing thy song, thou trancèd thrush,
      Pipe thy best, thy clearest;--
    Hush, her lattice moves, O hush--
      _Dearest Mabel!--dearest ..._




MATTHEW ARNOLD

1822-1888


_747._ _The Forsaken Merman_

      Come, dear children, let us away;
      Down and away below.
      Now my brothers call from the bay;
      Now the great winds shoreward blow;
      Now the salt tides seaward 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, ranged 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 smiled, 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 paved 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 gazed 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 loved one,
        But cruel is she.
      She left lonely for ever
        The kings of the sea.’


_748._ _The Song of Callicles_

    Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
    Thick breaks the red flame.
    All Etna heaves fiercely
    Her forest-clothed frame.

    Not here, O Apollo!
    Are haunts meet for thee.
    But, where Helicon breaks down
    In cliff to the sea.

    Where the moon-silver’d inlets
    Send far their light voice
    Up the still vale of Thisbe,
    O speed, and rejoice!

    On the sward at the cliff-top,
    Lie strewn the white flocks;
    On the cliff-side, the pigeons
    Roost deep in the rocks.

    In the moonlight the shepherds,
    Soft lull’d by the rills,
    Lie wrapt in their blankets,
    Asleep on the hills.

    --What forms are these coming
    So white through the gloom?
    What garments out-glistening
    The gold-flower’d broom?

    What sweet-breathing Presence
    Out-perfumes the thyme?
    What voices enrapture
    The night’s balmy prime?--

    ’Tis Apollo comes leading
    His choir, The Nine.
    --The Leader is fairest,
    But all are divine.

    They are lost in the hollows.
    They stream up again.
    What seeks on this mountain
    The glorified train?--

    They bathe on this mountain,
    In the spring by their road.
    Then on to Olympus,
    Their endless abode.

    --Whose praise do they mention
    Of what is it told?--
    What will be for ever.
    What was from of old.

    First hymn they the Father
    Of all things: and then,
    The rest of Immortals,
    The action of men.

    The Day in his hotness,
    The strife with the palm;
    The Night in her silence,
    The Stars in their calm.


_749._ _To Marguerite_

    Yes: in the sea of life enisled,
      With echoing straits between us thrown.
    Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
      We mortal millions live _alone_.
    The islands feel the enclasping flow,
    And then their endless bounds they know.

    But when the moon their hollows lights,
      And they are swept by balms of spring,
    And in their glens, on starry nights,
      The nightingales divinely sing;
    And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
    Across the sounds and channels pour;

    O then a longing like despair
      Is to their farthest caverns sent!
    For surely once, they feel, we were
      Parts of a single continent.
    Now round us spreads the watery plain--
    O might our marges meet again!

    Who order’d that their longing’s fire
      Should be, as soon as kindled, cool’d?
    Who renders vain their deep desire?--
      A God, a God their severance ruled;
    And bade betwixt their shores to be
    The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea.


_750._ _Requiescat_

    Strew on her roses, roses,
      And never a spray of yew.
    In quiet she reposes:
      Ah! would that I did too.

    Her mirth the world required:
      She bathed it in smiles of glee.
    But her heart was tired, tired,
      And now they let her be.

    Her life was turning, turning,
      In mazes of heat and sound.
    But for peace her soul was yearning,
      And now peace laps her round.

    Her cabin’d, ample Spirit,
      It flutter’d and fail’d for breath.
    To-night it doth inherit
      The vasty hall of Death.


_751._ _The Scholar-Gipsy_

    Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill;
      Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes:
        No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
      Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
        Nor the cropp’d grasses shoot another head.
          But when the fields are still,
      And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
        And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
        Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch’d green;
      Come, Shepherd, and again begin the quest.

    Here, where the reaper was at work of late,
      In this high field’s dark corner, where he leaves
        His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruise,
      And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
        Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use;
          Here will I sit and wait,
      While to my ear from uplands far away
        The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
        With distant cries of reapers in the corn--
      All the live murmur of a summer’s day.

    Screen’d is this nook o’er the high, half-reap’d field,
      And here till sundown, Shepherd, will I be.
        Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
      And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
        Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep:
          And air-swept lindens yield
      Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers
        Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
        And bower me from the August sun with shade;
      And the eye travels down to Oxford’s towers:


    And near me on the grass lies Glanvil’s book--
      Come, let me read the oft-read tale again:
        The story of that Oxford scholar poor,
      Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
        Who, tired of knocking at Preferment’s door,
          One summer morn forsook
      His friends, and went to learn the Gipsy lore,
        And roam’d the world with that wild brotherhood,
        And came, as most men deem’d, to little good,
      But came to Oxford and his friends no more.

    But once, years after, in the country lanes,
      Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,
        Met him, and of his way of life inquired.
      Whereat he answer’d that the Gipsy crew,
        His mates, had arts to rule as they desired
          The workings of men’s brains;
      And they can bind them to what thoughts they will:
        ‘And I,’ he said, ‘the secret of their art,
        When fully learn’d, will to the world impart:
      But it needs Heaven-sent moments for this skill!’

    This said, he left them, and return’d no more,
      But rumours hung about the country-side,
        That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray,
      Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,
        In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,
          The same the Gipsies wore.
      Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring;
        At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,
        On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock’d boors
      Had found him seated at their entering,
    But, ’mid their drink and clatter, he would fly:
      And I myself seem half to know thy looks,
        And put the shepherds, Wanderer, on thy trace;
      And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks
        I ask if thou hast pass’d their quiet place;
          Or in my boat I lie
      Moor’d to the cool bank in the summer heats,
        ‘Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,
        And watch the warm green-muffled Cumnor hills,
      And wonder if thou haunt’st their shy retreats.

    For most, I know, thou lov’st retirèd ground.
      Thee, at the ferry, Oxford riders blithe,
        Returning home on summer nights, have met
      Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock-hithe,
        Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,
          As the slow punt swings round:
      And leaning backwards in a pensive dream,
        And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers
        Pluck’d in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers,
      And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream:

    And then they land, and thou art seen no more.
      Maidens who from the distant hamlets come
        To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,
      Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam,
        Or cross a stile into the public way.
          Oft thou hast given them store
      Of flowers--the frail-leaf’d, white anemone--
        Dark bluebells drench’d with dews of summer eves,
        And purple orchises with spotted leaves--
      But none has words she can report of thee.

    And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time’s here
      In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,
        Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass
      Where black-wing’d swallows haunt the glittering Thames,
        To bathe in the abandon’d lasher pass,
          Have often pass’d thee near
      Sitting upon the river bank o’ergrown:
        Mark’d thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare,
        Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air;
      But, when they came from bathing, thou wert gone.

    At some lone homestead in the Cumnor hills,
      Where at her open door the housewife darns,
        Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate
      To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
        Children, who early range these slopes and late
          For cresses from the rills,
      Have known thee watching, all an April day,
        The springing pastures and the feeding kine;
        And mark’d thee, when the stars come out and shine,
      Through the long dewy grass move slow away.

    In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood,
      Where most the Gipsies by the turf-edged way
        Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see
      With scarlet patches tagg’d and shreds of gray,
        Above the forest-ground call’d Thessaly--
          The blackbird picking food
      Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all;
        So often has he known thee past him stray
        Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither’d spray,
      And waiting for the spark from Heaven to fall.

    And once, in winter, on the causeway chill
      Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go,
        Have I not pass’d thee on the wooden bridge
      Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow,
        Thy face towards Hinksey and its wintry ridge?
          And thou hast climb’d the hill
      And gain’d the white brow of the Cumnor range;
        Turn’d once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall,
        The line of festal light in Christ Church hall--
      Then sought thy straw in some sequester’d grange.

    But what--I dream! Two hundred years are flown
      Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls,
        And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe
      That thou wert wander’d from the studious walls
        To learn strange arts, and join a Gipsy tribe:
          And thou from earth art gone
      Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid;
        Some country nook, where o’er thy unknown grave
        Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave--
      Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree’s shade.

    --No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours.
      For what wears out the life of mortal men?
        ’Tis that from change to change their being rolls:
      ’Tis that repeated shocks, again, again,
        Exhaust the energy of strongest souls,
          And numb the elastic powers.
      Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen,
        And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit,
        To the just-pausing Genius we remit
      Our worn-out life, and are--what we have been.

    Thou hast not lived, why shouldst thou perish, so?
      Thou hadst _one_ aim, _one_ business, _one_ desire:
        Else wert thou long since number’d with the dead--
      Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire.
        The generations of thy peers are fled,
          And we ourselves shall go;
      But thou possessest an immortal lot,
        And we imagine thee exempt from age
        And living as thou liv’st on Glanvil’s page,
      Because thou hadst--what we, alas, have not!

    For early didst thou leave the world, with powers
      Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
        Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;
      Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,
        Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.
          O Life unlike to ours!
      Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
        Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives,
        And each half lives a hundred different lives;
      Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope.

    Thou waitest for the spark from Heaven: and we,
      Vague half-believers of our casual creeds,
        Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d,
      Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
        Whose weak resolves never have been fulfill’d;
          For whom each year we see
      Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
        Who hesitate and falter life away,
        And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day--
      Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too?

    Yes, we await it, but it still delays,
      And then we suffer; and amongst us One,
        Who most has suffer’d, takes dejectedly
      His seat upon the intellectual throne;
        And all his store of sad experience he
          Lays bare of wretched days;
      Tells us his misery’s birth and growth and signs,
        And how the dying spark of hope was fed,
        And how the breast was soothed, and how the head,
      And all his hourly varied anodynes.

    This for our wisest: and we others pine,
      And wish the long unhappy dream would end,
        And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear,
      With close-lipp’d Patience for our only friend,
        Sad Patience, too near neighbour to Despair:
          But none has hope like thine.
      Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,
        Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,
        Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
      And every doubt long blown by time away.

    O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,
      And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;
        Before this strange disease of modern life,
      With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
        Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife--
          Fly hence, our contact fear!
      Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!
        Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern
        From her false friend’s approach in Hades turn,
      Wave us away, and keep thy solitude.

    Still nursing the unconquerable hope,
      Still clutching the inviolable shade,
        With a free onward impulse brushing through,
      By night, the silver’d branches of the glade--
        Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue.
          On some mild pastoral slope
      Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales,
        Freshen thy flowers, as in former years,
        With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,
      From the dark dingles, to the nightingales.

    But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!
      For strong the infection of our mental strife,
        Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;
      And we should win thee from thy own fair life,
        Like us distracted, and like us unblest.
          Soon, soon thy cheer would die,
      Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix’d thy powers,
        And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made:
        And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,
      Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.

    Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
    --As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
        Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
      Lifting the cool-hair’d creepers stealthily,
        The fringes of a southward-facing brow
          Among the Ægean isles;
      And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
        Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
        Green bursting figs, and tunnies steep’d in brine;
      And knew the intruders on his ancient home,
    The young light-hearted Masters of the waves;
      And snatch’d his rudder, and shook out more sail,
        And day and night held on indignantly
      O’er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
        Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,
          To where the Atlantic raves
      Outside the Western Straits, and unbent sails
        There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,
        Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;
      And on the beach undid his corded bales.


_752._ _Philomela_

    Hark! ah, the Nightingale!
    The tawny-throated!
    Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
    What triumph! hark--what pain!

    O Wanderer from a Grecian shore,
    Still, after many years, in distant lands,
    Still nourishing in thy bewilder’d brain
    That wild, unquench’d, deep-sunken, old-world pain--
      Say, will it never heal?
    And can this fragrant lawn
    With its cool trees, and night,
    And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
    And moonshine, and the dew,
    To thy rack’d heart and brain
      Afford no balm?

      Dost thou to-night behold
    Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
    The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
      Dost thou again peruse
    With hot cheeks and sear’d eyes
    The too clear web, and thy dumb Sister’s shame?
      Dost thou once more assay
    Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
    Poor Fugitive, the feathery change
    Once more, and once more seem to make resound
    With love and hate, triumph and agony,
    Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
        Listen, Eugenia--
    How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves
      Again--thou hearest!
    Eternal Passion!
    Eternal Pain!


_753._ _Shakespeare_

    Others abide our question. Thou art free.
    We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still,
    Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill
    That to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
    Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
    Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place.
    Spares but the cloudy border of his base
    To the foil’d searching of mortality;
    And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
    Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,
    Didst walk on earth unguess’d at. Better so!
    All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
      All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,
      Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.


_754._ _From the Hymn of Empedocles_

          Is it so small a thing
          To have enjoy’d the sun,
          To have lived light in the spring,
          To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
    To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes;

          That we must feign a bliss
          Of doubtful future date,
          And while we dream on this
          Lose all our present state,
    And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?

          Not much, I know, you prize
          What pleasures may be had,
          Who look on life with eyes
          Estranged, like mine, and sad:
    And yet the village churl feels the truth more than you;

          Who’s loth to leave this life
          Which to him little yields:
          His hard-task’d sunburnt wife,
          His often-labour’d fields;
    The boors with whom he talk’d, the country spots he knew.

          But thou, because thou hear’st
          Men scoff at Heaven and Fate;
          Because the gods thou fear’st
          Fail to make blest thy state,
    Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are.

          I say, Fear not! life still
          Leaves human effort scope.
          But, since life teems with ill,
          Nurse no extravagant hope.
    Because thou must not dream, thou need’st not then despair.




WILLIAM BRIGHTY RANDS

1823-1880


_755._ _The Flowers_

    When Love arose in heart and deed
      To wake the world to greater joy,
    ‘What can she give me now?’ said Greed,
      Who thought to win some costly toy.

    He rose, he ran, he stoop’d, he clutch’d;
      And soon the Flowers, that Love let fall,
    In Greed’s hot grasp were fray’d and smutch’d,
      And Greed said, ‘Flowers! Can this be all?’

    He flung them down and went his way,
      He cared no jot for thyme or rose;
    But boys and girls came out to play,
      And some took these and some took those--

    Red, blue, and white, and green and gold;
      And at their touch the dew return’d,
    And all the bloom a thousandfold--
      So red, so ripe, the roses burn’d!


_756._ _The Thought_

    Into the skies, one summer’s day,
    I sent a little Thought away;
    Up to where, in the blue round,
    The sun sat shining without sound.

    Then my Thought came back to me.--
    Little Thought, what did you see
    In the regions whence you come?
    And when I spoke, my Thought was dumb.

    But she breathed of what was there,
    In the pure bright upper air;
    And, because my Thought so shone,
    I knew she had been shone upon.

    Next, by night a Thought I sent
    Up into the firmament;
    When the eager stars were out,
    And the still moon shone about.

    And my Thought went past the moon
    In between the stars, but soon
    Held her breath and durst not stir,
    For the fear that covered her;
    Then she thought, in this demur:

    ‘Dare I look beneath the shade,
    Into where the worlds are made;
    Where the suns and stars are wrought?
    Shall I meet another Thought?

    ‘Will that other Thought have wings?
    Shall I meet strange, heavenly things?
    Thought of Thoughts, and Light of Lights,
    Breath of Breaths, and Night of Nights?’

    Then my Thought began to hark
    In the illuminated dark,
    Till the silence, over, under,
    Made her heart beat more than thunder.

    And my Thought, came trembling back,
    But with something on her track,
    And with something at her side;
    Nor till she has lived and died,
    Lived and died, and lived again,
    Will that awful thing seem plain.




WILLIAM PHILPOT

1823-1889


_757._ _Maritæ Suæ_


I

    Of all the flowers rising now,
      Thou only saw’st the head
    Of that unopen’d drop of snow
      I placed beside thy bed.

    In all the blooms that blow so fast,
      Thou hast no further part,
    Save those the hour I saw thee last,
      I laid above thy heart.

    Two snowdrops for our boy and girl,
      A primrose blown for me,
    Wreathed with one often-play’d-with curl
      From each bright head for thee.

    And so I graced thee for thy grave,
      And made these tokens fast
    With that old silver heart I gave,
      My first gift--and my last.


II

    I dream’d, her babe upon her breast,
    Here she might lie and calmly rest
    Her happy eyes on that far hill
    That backs the landscape fresh and still.

    I hoped her thoughts would thrid the boughs
    Where careless birds on love carouse,
    And gaze those apple-blossoms through
    To revel in the boundless blue.

    But now her faculty of sight
    Is elder sister to the light,
    And travels free and unconfined
    Through dense and rare, through form and mind.

    Or else her life to be complete
    Hath found new channels full and meet--
    Then, O, what eyes are leaning o’er,
    If fairer than they were before!




WILLIAM (JOHNSON) CORY

1823-1892


_758._ _Mimnermus in Church_

    You promise heavens free from strife,
      Pure truth, and perfect change of will;
    But sweet, sweet is this human life,
      So sweet, I fain would breathe it still;
    Your chilly stars I can forgo,
    This warm kind world is all I know.

    You say there is no substance here,
      One great reality above:
    Back from that void I shrink in fear,
      And child-like hide myself in love:
    Show me what angels feel. Till then
    I cling, a mere weak man, to men.

    You bid me lift my mean desires
      From faltering lips and fitful veins
    To sexless souls, ideal quires,
      Unwearied voices, wordless strains:
    My mind with fonder welcome owns
    One dear dead friend’s remember’d tones.

    Forsooth the present we must give
      To that which cannot pass away;
    All beauteous things for which we live
      By laws of time and space decay.
    But O, the very reason why
    I clasp them, is because they die.


_759._ _Heraclitus_

    They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
    They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
    I wept as I remember’d how often you and I
    Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

    And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
    A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
    Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
    For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.




COVENTRY PATMORE

1823-1896


_760._ _The Married Lover_

    Why, having won her, do I woo?
      Because her spirit’s vestal grace
    Provokes me always to pursue,
      But, spirit-like, eludes embrace;
    Because her womanhood is such
      That, as on court-days subjects kiss
    The Queen’s hand, yet so near a touch
      Affirms no mean familiarness;
    Nay, rather marks more fair the height
      Which can with safety so neglect
    To dread, as lower ladies might,
      That grace could meet with disrespect;
    Thus she with happy favour feeds
      Allegiance from a love so high
    That thence no false conceit proceeds
      Of difference bridged, or state put by;
    Because although in act and word
      As lowly as a wife can be,
    Her manners, when they call me lord,
      Remind me ’tis by courtesy;
    Not with her least consent of will,
      Which would my proud affection hurt,
    But by the noble style that still
      Imputes an unattain’d desert;
    Because her gay and lofty brows,
      When all is won which hope can ask,
    Reflect a light of hopeless snows
      That bright in virgin ether bask;
    Because, though free of the outer court
      I am, this Temple keeps its shrine
    Sacred to Heaven; because, in short,
      She’s not and never can be mine.


_761._ ‘_If I were dead_’

    ‘If I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’
    The dear lips quiver’d as they spake,
    And the tears brake
    From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.
    Poor Child, poor Child!
    I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.
    It is not true that Love will do no wrong.
    Poor Child!
    And did you think, when you so cried and smiled,
    How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake,
    And of those words your full avengers make?
    Poor Child, poor Child!
    And now, unless it be
    That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee,
    O God, have Thou _no_ mercy upon me!
    Poor Child!


_762._ _Departure_

    It was not like your great and gracious ways!
    Do you, that have naught other to lament,
    Never, my Love, repent
    Of how, that July afternoon,
    You went,
    With sudden, unintelligible phrase,
    And frighten’d eye,
    Upon your journey of so many days
    Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?
    I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
    And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays,
    You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
    Your harrowing praise.
    Well, it was well
    To hear you such things speak,
    And I could tell
    What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
    As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove.
    And it was like your great and gracious ways
    To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
    Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash
    To let the laughter flash,
    Whilst I drew near,
    Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.
    But all at once to leave me at the last,
    More at the wonder than the loss aghast,
    With huddled, unintelligible phrase,
    And frighten’d eye,
    And go your journey of all days
    With not one kiss, or a good-bye,
    And the only loveless look the look with which you pass’d:
    ’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.


_763._ _The Toys_

    My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
    And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
    Having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
    I struck him, and dismissed
    With hard words and unkiss’d,
    --His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
    Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
    I visited his bed,
    But found him slumbering deep,
    With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet
    From his late sobbing wet.
    And I, with moan,
    Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
    For, on a table drawn beside his head,
    He had put, within his reach,
    A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
    A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
    And six or seven shells,
    A bottle with bluebells,
    And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
    To comfort his sad heart.
    So when that night I pray’d
    To God, I wept, and said:
    Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath,
    Not vexing Thee in death,
    And Thou rememberest of what toys
    We made our joys,
    How weakly understood
    Thy great commanded good,
    Then, fatherly not less
    Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,
    Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
    ‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’


_764._ _A Farewell_

    With all my will, but much against my heart,
    We two now part.
    My Very Dear,
    Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.
    It needs no art,
    With faint, averted feet
    And many a tear,
    In our opposèd paths to persevere.
    Go thou to East, I West.
    We will not say
    There’s any hope, it is so far away.
    But, O, my Best,
    When the one darling of our widowhead,
    The nursling Grief,
    Is dead,
    And no dews blur our eyes
    To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,
    Perchance we may,
    Where now this night is day,
    And even through faith of still averted feet,
    Making full circle of our banishment,
    Amazèd meet;
    The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
    Seasoning the termless feast of our content
    With tears of recognition never dry.




SYDNEY DOBELL

1824-1874


_765._ _The Ballad of Keith of Ravelston_

    The murmur of the mourning ghost
      That keeps the shadowy kine,
    ‘O Keith of Ravelston,
      The sorrows of thy line!’

    Ravelston, Ravelston,
      The merry path that leads
    Down the golden morning hill,
      And thro’ the silver meads;

    Ravelston, Ravelston,
      The stile beneath the tree,
    The maid that kept her mother’s kine,
      The song that sang she!

    She sang her song, she kept her kine,
      She sat beneath the thorn,
    When Andrew Keith of Ravelston
      Rode thro’ the Monday morn.

    His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring,
      His belted jewels shine;
    O Keith of Ravelston,
      The sorrows of thy line!

    Year after year, where Andrew came,
      Comes evening down the glade,
    And still there sits a moonshine ghost
      Where sat the sunshine maid.

    Her misty hair is faint and fair,
      She keeps the shadowy kine;
    O Keith of Ravelston,
      The sorrows of thy line!

    I lay my hand upon the stile,
      The stile is lone and cold,
    The burnie that goes babbling by
      Says naught that can be told.

    Yet, stranger! here, from year to year,
      She keeps her shadowy kine;
    O Keith of Ravelston,
      The sorrows of thy line!

    Step out three steps, where Andrew stood--
      Why blanch thy cheeks for fear?
    The ancient stile is not alone,
      ’Tis not the burn I hear!

    She makes her immemorial moan,
      She keeps her shadowy kine;
    O Keith of Ravelston,
      The sorrows of thy line!


_766._ _Return!_

    Return, return! all night my lamp is burning,
    All night, like it, my wide eyes watch and burn;
    Like it, I fade and pale, when day returning
    Bears witness that the absent can return,
                Return, return.

    Like it, I lessen with a lengthening sadness,
    Like it, I burn to waste and waste to burn,
    Like it, I spend the golden oil of gladness
    To feed the sorrowy signal for return,
                Return, return.

    Like it, like it, whene’er the east wind sings,
    I bend and shake; like it, I quake and yearn,
    When Hope’s late butterflies, with whispering wings,
    Fly in out of the dark, to fall and burn--
      Burn in the watchfire of return,
                Return, return.

    Like it, the very flame whereby I pine
    Consumes me to its nature. While I mourn
    My soul becomes a better soul than mine,
    And from its brightening beacon I discern
    My starry love go forth from me, and shine
    Across the seas a path for thy return,
                Return, return.

    Return, return! all night I see it burn,
    All night it prays like me, and lifts a twin
    Of palmèd praying hands that meet and yearn--
    Yearn to the impleaded skies for thy return.
    Day, like a golden fetter, locks them in,
    And wans the light that withers, tho’ it burn
      As warmly still for thy return;
    Still thro’ the splendid load uplifts the thin
    Pale, paler, palest patience that can learn
    Naught but that votive sign for thy return--
    That single suppliant sign for thy return,
                Return, return.

    Return, return! lest haply, love, or e’er
    Thou touch the lamp the light have ceased to burn,
    And thou, who thro’ the window didst discern
    The wonted flame, shalt reach the topmost stair
      To find no wide eyes watching there,
    No wither’d welcome waiting thy return!
    A passing ghost, a smoke-wreath in the air,
    The flameless ashes, and the soulless urn,
    Warm with the famish’d fire that lived to burn--
    Burn out its lingering life for thy return,
    Its last of lingering life for thy return,
    Its last of lingering life to light thy late return,
                Return, return.


_767._ _A Chanted Calendar_

    First came the primrose,
    On the bank high,
    Like a maiden looking forth
    From the window of a tower
    When the battle rolls below,
    So look’d she,
    And saw the storms go by.
                Then came the wind-flower
                In the valley left behind,
                As a wounded maiden, pale
                With purple streaks of woe,
                When the battle has roll’d by
                Wanders to and fro,
                So totter’d she,
                Dishevelled in the wind.

                Then came the daisies,
                On the first of May,
                Like a banner’d show’s advance
                While the crowd runs by the way,
    With ten thousand flowers about them they came trooping through the fields.
                As a happy people come,
                So came they,
                As a happy people come
                When the war has roll’d away,
                With dance and tabor, pipe and drum.
                And all make holiday.

                Then came the cowslip,
                Like a dancer in the fair,
                She spread her little mat of green,
                And on it danced she.
                With a fillet bound about her brow,
                A fillet round her happy brow,
                A golden fillet round her brow,
                And rubies in her hair.


_768._ _Laus Deo_

    In the hall the coffin waits, and the idle armourer stands.
    At his belt the coffin nails, and the hammer in his hands.
    The bed of state is hung with crape--the grand old bed where she was wed--
    And like an upright corpse she sitteth gazing dumbly at the bed.
    Hour by hour her serving-men enter by the curtain’d door,
    And with steps of muffled woe pass breathless o’er the silent floor,
    And marshal mutely round, and look from each to each with eyelids red;
    ‘Touch him not,’ she shriek’d and cried, ‘he is but newly dead!’
    ‘O my own dear mistress,’ the ancient Nurse did say,
    ‘Seven long days and seven long nights you have watch’d him where he lay.’
    ‘Seven long days and seven long nights,‘the hoary Steward said;
    ‘Seven long days and seven long nights,’ groan’d the Warrener gray;
    ‘Seven,’ said the old Henchman, and bow’d his aged head;
    ‘On your lives!’ she shriek’d and cried,‘he is but newly dead!’
            Then a father Priest they sought,
            The Priest that taught her all she knew,
            And they told him of her loss.
            ‘For she is mild and sweet of will,
            She loved him, and his words are peace,
            And he shall heal her ill.’
            But her watch she did not cease.
            He bless’d her where she sat distraught,
            And show’d her holy cross,--
            The cross she kiss’d from year to year--
            But she neither saw nor heard;
            And said he in her deaf ear
            All he had been wont to teach,
            All she had been fond to hear,
            Missall’d prayer, and solemn speech,
            But she answer’d not a word.
    Only when he turn’d to speak with those who wept about the bed,
    ‘On your lives!’ she shriek’d and cried, ‘he is but newly dead!’
    Then how sadly he turn’d from her, it were wonderful to tell,
    And he stood beside the death-bed as by one who slumbers well,
    And he lean’d o’er him who lay there, and in cautious whisper low,
    ‘He is not dead, but sleepeth,’ said the Priest, and smooth’d his brow.
    ‘Sleepeth?’ said she, looking up, and the sun rose in her face!
    ‘He must be better than I thought, for the sleep is very sound.’
    ‘He is better,’ said the Priest, and call’d her maidens round.
    With them came that ancient dame who nursed her when a child;
    O Nurse!’ she sigh’d, ‘O Nurse!’ she cried, ‘O Nurse!’ and then she smiled,
            And then she wept; with that they drew
            About her, as of old;
            Her dying eyes were sweet and blue,
            Her trembling touch was cold;
            But she said, ‘My maidens true,
            No more weeping and well-away;
            Let them kill the feast.
            I would be happy in my soul.
            “He is better,” saith the Priest;
            He did but sleep the weary day,
            And will waken whole.
            Carry me to his dear side,
            And let the halls be trim;
            Whistly, whistly,’ said she,
            ‘I am wan with watching and wail,
            He must not wake to see me pale,
            Let me sleep with him.
            See you keep the tryst for me,
            I would rest till he awake
            And rise up like a bride.
            But whistly, whistly!’ said she.
            ‘Yet rejoice your Lord doth live;
            And for His dear sake
            Say _Laus, Domine_.’
            Silent they cast down their eyes,
            And every breast a sob did rive,
            She lifted her in wild surprise
            And they dared not disobey.
    ‘_Laus Deo_,’ said the Steward, hoary when her days were new;
    ‘_Laus Deo_,’ said the Warrener, whiter than the warren snows;
    ‘_Laus Deo_,’ the bald Henchman, who had nursed her on his knee.
            The old Nurse moved her lips in vain,
            And she stood among the train
            Like a dead tree shaking dew.
            Then the Priest he softly slept
            Midway in the little band,
            And he took the Lady’s hand.
            ‘_Laus Deo_,’ he said aloud,
            ‘_Laus Deo_,’ they said again,
            Yet again, and yet again,
            Humbly cross’d and lowly bow’d,
            Till in wont and fear it rose
            To the Sabbath strain.


    But she neither turn’d her head
    Nor ‘Whistly, whistly,’ said she.
    Her hands were folded as in grace,
    We laid her with her ancient race
    And all the village wept.


WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

1824-1889


_769._ _The Fairies_


    Up the airy mountain,
      Down the rushy glen,
    We daren’t go a-hunting
      For fear of little men;
    Wee folk, good folk,
      Trooping all together;
    Green jacket, red cap,
      And white owl’s feather!

    Down along the rocky shore
      Some make their home,
    They live on crispy pancakes
      Of yellow tide-foam;
    Some in the reeds
      Of the black mountain lake,
    With frogs for their watch-dogs,
      All night awake.

    High on the hill-top
      The old King sits;
    He is now so old and gray
      He’s nigh lost his wits.


    With a bridge of white mist
      Columbkill he crosses,
    On his stately journeys
      From Slieveleague to Rosses;
    Or going up with music
      On cold starry nights
    To sup with the Queen
      Of the gay Northern Lights.

    They stole little Bridget
      For seven years long;
    When she came down again
      Her friends were all gone.
    They took her lightly back,
      Between the night and morrow,
    They thought that she was fast asleep,
      But she was dead with sorrow.
    They have kept her ever since
      Deep within the lake,
    On a bed of flag-leaves,
      Watching till she wake.

    By the craggy hill-side,
      Through the mosses bare,
    They have planted thorn-trees
      For pleasure here and there.
    If any man so daring
      As dig them up in spite,
    He shall find their sharpest thorns
      In his bed at night.

    Up the airy mountain,
      Down the rushy glen,
    We daren’t go a-hunting
      For fear of little men;
    Wee folk, good folk,
      Trooping all together;
    Green jacket, red cap,
      And white owl’s feather!




GEORGE MAC DONALD

1824-1905


_770._ _That Holy Thing_

    They all were looking for a king
      To slay their foes and lift them high:
    Thou cam’st, a little baby thing
        That made a woman cry.

    O Son of Man, to right my lot
      Naught but Thy presence can avail;
    Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
        Nor on the sea Thy sail!

    My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
      But come down Thine own secret stair,
    That Thou mayst answer all my need--
        Yea, every bygone prayer.




DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

1828-1882


_771._ _The Blessèd Damozel_

    The blessèd Damozel lean’d out
      From the gold bar of Heaven:
    Her blue grave eyes were deeper much
      Than a deep water, even.
    She had three lilies in her hand,
      And the stars in her hair were seven.


    Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
      No wrought flowers did adorn,
    But a white rose of Mary’s gift
      On the neck meetly worn;
    And her hair, lying down her back,
      Was yellow like ripe corn.

    Herseem’d she scarce had been a day
      One of God’s choristers;
    The wonder was not yet quite gone
      From that still look of hers;
    Albeit, to them she left, her day
      Had counted as ten years.

    (To _one_ it is ten years of years:
... Yet now, here in this place,
    Surely she lean’d o’er me,--her hair
      Fell all about my face....
    Nothing: the Autumn-fall of leaves.
      The whole year sets apace.)

    It was the terrace of God’s house
      That she was standing on,--
    By God built over the sheer depth
      In which Space is begun;
    So high, that looking downward thence,
      She scarce could see the sun.

    It lies from Heaven across the flood
      Of ether, as a bridge.
    Beneath, the tides of day and night
      With flame and darkness ridge
    The void, as low as where this earth
      Spins like a fretful midge.


    But in those tracts, with her, it was
      The peace of utter light
    And silence. For no breeze may stir
      Along the steady flight
    Of seraphim; no echo there,
      Beyond all depth or height.

    Heard hardly, some of her new friends,
      Playing at holy games,
    Spake, gentle-mouth’d, among themselves,
      Their virginal chaste names;
    And the souls, mounting up to God,
      Went by her like thin flames.

    And still she bow’d herself, and stoop’d
      Into the vast waste calm;
    Till her bosom’s pressure must have made
      The bar she lean’d on warm,
    And the lilies lay as if asleep
      Along her bended arm.

    From the fixt lull of Heaven, she saw
      Time, like a pulse, shake fierce
    Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove,
      In that steep gulf, to pierce
    The swarm; and then she spoke, as when
      The stars sang in their spheres.

    ‘I wish that he were come to me,
      For he will come,’ she said.
    ‘Have I not pray’d in solemn Heaven?
      On earth, has he not pray’d?
    Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
      And shall I feel afraid?


    ‘When round his head the aureole clings,
      And he is clothed in white,
    I’ll take his hand, and go with him
      To the deep wells of light,
    And we will step down as to a stream
      And bathe there in God’s sight.

    ‘We two will stand beside that shrine,
      Occult, withheld, untrod,
    Whose lamps tremble continually
      With prayer sent up to God;
    And where each need, reveal’d, expects
      Its patient period.

    ‘We two will lie i’ the shadow of
      That living mystic tree
    Within whose secret growth the Dove
      Sometimes is felt to be,
    While every leaf that His plumes touch
      Saith His name audibly.

    ‘And I myself will teach to him,--
      I myself, lying so,--
    The songs I sing here; which his mouth
      Shall pause in, hush’d and slow,
    Finding some knowledge at each pause,
      And some new thing to know.’

    (Alas! to _her_ wise simple mind
      These things were all but known
    Before: they trembled on her sense,--
      Her voice had caught their tone.
    Alas for lonely Heaven! Alas
      For life wrung out alone!


    Alas, and though the end were reach’d?...
      Was _thy_ part understood
    Or borne in trust? And for her sake
      Shall this too be found good?--
    May the close lips that knew not prayer
      Praise ever, though they would?)

    ‘We two,’ she said, ‘will seek the groves
      Where the lady Mary is,
    With her five handmaidens, whose names
      Are five sweet symphonies:--
    Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
      Margaret and Rosalys.

    ‘Circle-wise sit they, with bound locks
      And bosoms coverèd;
    Into the fine cloth, white like flame,
      Weaving the golden thread,
    To fashion the birth-robes for them
      Who are just born, being dead.

    ‘He shall fear, haply, and be dumb.
      Then I will lay my cheek
    To his, and tell about our love,
      Not once abash’d or weak:
    And the dear Mother will approve
      My pride, and let me speak.

    ‘Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
      To Him round whom all souls
    Kneel--the unnumber’d solemn heads
      Bow’d with their aureoles:
    And Angels, meeting us, shall sing
      To their citherns and citoles.


    ‘There will I ask of Christ the Lord
      Thus much for him and me:--
    To have more blessing than on earth
      In nowise; but to be
    As then we were,--being as then
      At peace. Yea, verily.

    ‘Yea, verily; when he is come
      We will do thus and thus:
    Till this my vigil seem quite strange
      And almost fabulous;
    We two will live at once, one life;
      And peace shall be with us.’

    She gazed, and listen’d, and then said,
      Less sad of speech than mild,--
    ‘All this is when he comes.’ She ceased:
      The light thrill’d past her, fill’d
    With Angels, in strong level lapse.
      Her eyes pray’d, and she smiled.

    (I saw her smile.) But soon their flight
      Was vague ’mid the poised spheres.
    And then she cast her arms along
      The golden barriers,
    And laid her face between her hands,
      And wept. (I heard her tears.)




GEORGE MEREDITH

1828-1909


_772._ _Love in the Valley_

    Under yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward,
      Couch’d with her arms behind her golden head,
    Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
      Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
    Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,
      Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow,
    Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me:
      Then would she hold me and never let me go?

           *       *       *       *       *

    Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow,
      Swift as the swallow along the river’s light
    Circleting the surface to meet his mirror’d winglets,
      Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight.
    Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops,
      Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun,
    She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer,
      Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!

           *       *       *       *       *

    When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror,
      Tying up her laces, looping up her hair,
    Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded,
      More love should I have, and much less care.
    When her mother tends her before the lighted mirror,
      Loosening her laces, combing down her curls,
    Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded,
      I should miss but one for many boys and girls.

           *       *       *       *       *


    Heartless she is as the shadow in the meadows
      Flying to the hills on a blue and breezy noon.
    No, she is athirst and drinking up her wonder:
      Earth to her is young as the slip of the new moon.
    Deals she an unkindness, ’tis but her rapid measure,
      Even as in a dance; and her smile can heal no less:
    Like the swinging May-cloud that pelts the flowers with hailstones
      Off a sunny border, she was made to bruise and bless.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
      Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
    Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried,
      Brooding o’er the gloom, spins the brown evejar.
    Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting:
      So were it with me if forgetting could be will’d.
    Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring,
      Tell it to forget the source that keeps it fill’d.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Stepping down the hill with her fair companions,
      Arm in arm, all against the raying West,
    Boldly she sings, to the merry tune she marches,
      Brave is her shape, and sweeter unpossess’d.
    Sweeter, for she is what my heart first awaking
      Whisper’d the world was; morning light is she.
    Love that so desires would fain keep her changeless;
      Fain would fling the net, and fain have her free.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Happy happy time, when the white star hovers
      Low over dim fields fresh with bloomy dew,
    Near the face of dawn, that draws athwart the darkness,
      Threading it with colour, like yewberries the yew.
    Thicker crowd the shades as the grave East deepens
      Glowing, and with crimson a long cloud swells.
    Maiden still the morn is; and strange she is, and secret;
      Strange her eyes; her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Sunrays, leaning on our southern hills and lighting
      Wild cloud-mountains that drag the hills along,
    Oft ends the day of your shifting brilliant laughter
      Chill as a dull face frowning on a song.
    Ay, but shows the South-west a ripple-feather’d bosom
      Blown to silver while the clouds are shaken and ascend
    Scaling the mid-heavens as they stream, there comes a sunset
      Rich, deep like love in beauty without end.

           *       *       *       *       *

    When at dawn she sighs, and like an infant to the window
      Turns grave eyes craving light, released from dreams,
    Beautiful she looks, like a white water-lily
      Bursting out of bud in havens of the streams.
    When from bed she rises clothed from neck to ankle
      In her long nightgown sweet as boughs of May,
    Beautiful she looks, like a tall garden-lily
      Pure from the night, and splendid for the day.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Mother of the dews, dark eye-lash’d twilight,
      Low-lidded twilight, o’er the valley’s brim,
    Rounding on thy breast sings the dew-delighted skylark,
      Clear as though the dewdrops had their voice in him.
    Hidden where the rose-flush drinks the rayless planet,
      Fountain-full he pours the spraying fountain-showers.
    Let me hear her laughter, I would have her ever
      Cool as dew in twilight, the lark above the flowers.

           *       *       *       *       *


    All the girls are out with their baskets for the primrose;
      Up lanes, woods through, they troop in joyful bands.
    My sweet leads: she knows not why, but now she loiters,
      Eyes the bent anemones, and hangs her hands.
    Such a look will tell that the violets are peeping,
      Coming the rose: and unaware a cry
    Springs in her bosom for odours and for colour,
      Covert and the nightingale; she knows not why.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Kerchief’d head and chin she darts between her tulips,
      Streaming like a willow gray in arrowy rain:
    Some bend beaten cheek to gravel, and their angel
      She will be; she lifts them, and on she speeds again.
    Black the driving raincloud breasts the iron gateway:
      She is forth to cheer a neighbour lacking mirth.
    So when sky and grass met rolling dumb for thunder
      Saw I once a white dove, sole light of earth.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden,
      Train’d to stand in rows, and asking if they please.
    I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones:
      O my wild ones! they tell me more than these.
    You, my wild one, you tell of honied field-rose,
      Violet, blushing eglantine in life; and even as they,
    They by the wayside are earnest of your goodness,
      You are of life’s, on the banks that line the way.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Peering at her chamber the white crowns the red rose,
      Jasmine winds the porch with stars two and three.
    Parted is the window; she sleeps; the starry jasmine
      Breathes a falling breath that carries thoughts of me.
    Sweeter unpossessed, have I said of her my sweetest?
      Not while she sleeps: while she sleeps the jasmine breathes,
    Luring her to love; she sleeps; the starry jasmine
      Bears me to her pillow under white rose-wreaths.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Yellow with birdfoot-trefoil are the grass-glades;
      Yellow with cinquefoil of the dew-gray leaf;
    Yellow with stonecrop; the moss-mounds are yellow;
      Blue-neck’d the wheat sways, yellowing to the sheaf.
    Green-yellow, bursts from the copse the laughing yaffle;
      Sharp as a sickle is the edge of shade and shine:
    Earth in her heart laughs looking at the heavens,
      Thinking of the harvest: I look and think of mine.

           *       *       *       *       *

    This I may know: her dressing and undressing
      Such a change of light shows as when the skies in sport
    Shift from cloud to moonlight; or edging over thunder
      Slips a ray of sun; or sweeping into port
    White sails furl; or on the ocean borders
      White sails lean along the waves leaping green.
    Visions of her shower before me, but from eyesight
      Guarded she would be like the sun were she seen.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Front door and back of the moss’d old farmhouse
      Open with the morn, and in a breezy link
    Freshly sparkles garden to stripe-shadow’d orchard,
      Green across a rill where on sand the minnows wink.
    Busy in the grass the early sun of summer
      Swarms, and the blackbird’s mellow fluting notes
    Call my darling up with round and roguish challenge:
      Quaintest, richest carol of all the singing throats!

           *       *       *       *       *


    Cool was the woodside; cool as her white dairy
      Keeping sweet the cream-pan; and there the boys from school,
    Cricketing below, rush’d brown and red with sunshine;
      O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool!
    Spying from the farm, herself she fetch’d a pitcher
      Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak.
    Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe,
      Said, ‘I will kiss you’: she laugh’d and lean’d her cheek.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof
      Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo.
    Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway
      Sometimes pipes a chaffinch; loose droops the blue.
    Cows flap a slow tail knee-deep in the river,
      Breathless, given up to sun and gnat and fly.
    Nowhere is she seen; and if I see her nowhere,
      Lightning may come, straight rains and tiger sky.

           *       *       *       *       *

    O the golden sheaf, the rustling treasure-armful!
      O the nutbrown tresses nodding interlaced!
    O the treasure-tresses one another over
      Nodding! O the girdle slack about the waist!
    Slain are the poppies that shot their random scarlet
      Quick amid the wheat-ears: wound about the waist,
    Gathered, see these brides of Earth one blush of ripeness!
      O the nutbrown tresses nodding interlaced!

           *       *       *       *       *

    Large and smoky red the sun’s cold disk drops,
      Clipped by naked hills, on violet shaded snow:
    Eastward large and still lights up a bower of moonrise,
      Whence at her leisure steps the moon aglow.
    Nightlong on black print-branches our beech-tree
      Gazes in this whiteness: nightlong could I.
    Here may life on death or death on life be painted.
      Let me clasp her soul to know she cannot die!

           *       *       *       *       *

    Gossips count her faults; they scour a narrow chamber
      Where there is no window, read not heaven or her.
    ‘When she was a tiny,’ one agèd woman quavers,
      Plucks at my heart and leads me by the ear.
    Faults she had once as she learn’d to run and tumbled:
      Faults of feature some see, beauty not complete.
    Yet, good gossips, beauty that makes holy
      Earth and air, may have faults from head to feet.

    Hither she comes; she comes to me; she lingers,
      Deepens her brown eyebrows, while in new surprise
    High rise the lashes in wonder of a stranger;
      Yet am I the light and living of her eyes.
    Something friends have told her fills her heart to brimming,
      Nets her in her blushes, and wounds her, and tames.--
    Sure of her haven, O like a dove alighting,
      Arms up, she dropp’d: our souls were in our names.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Soon will she lie like a white frost sunrise.
      Yellow oats and brown wheat, barley pale as rye,
    Long since your sheaves have yielded to the thresher,
      Felt the girdle loosen’d, seen the tresses fly.
    Soon will she lie like a blood-red sunset.
      Swift with the to-morrow, green-wing’d Spring!
    Sing from the South-west, bring her back the truants,
      Nightingale and swallow, song and dipping wing.

           *       *       *       *       *


    Soft new beech-leaves, up to beamy April
      Spreading bough on bough a primrose mountain, you
    Lucid in the moon, raise lilies to the skyfields,
      Youngest green transfused in silver shining through:
    Fairer than the lily, than the wild white cherry:
      Fair as in image my seraph love appears
    Borne to me by dreams when dawn is at my eyelids:
      Fair as in the flesh she swims to me on tears.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Could I find a place to be alone with heaven,
      I would speak my heart out: heaven is my need.
    Every woodland tree is flushing like the dogwood,
      Flashing like the whitebeam, swaying like the reed.
    Flushing like the dogwood crimson in October;
      Streaming like the flag-reed South-west blown;
    Flashing as in gusts the sudden-lighted whitebeam:
      All seem to know what is for heaven alone.


_773._ _Phœbus with Admetus_

    When by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked,
      Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God,
    Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked,
      Who: and what a track show’d the upturn’d sod!
    Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe
      Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide,
    How the rustic flute drew the silver to the sphere,
      Sister of his own, till her rays fell wide.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darken’d
                That had thee here obscure.


    Chirping none, the scarlet cicalas crouch’d in ranks:
      Slack the thistle-head piled its down-silk gray:
    Scarce the stony lizard suck’d hollows in his flanks:
      Thick on spots of umbrage our drowsed flocks lay.
    Sudden bow’d the chestnuts beneath a wind unheard,
      Lengthen’d ran the grasses, the sky grew slate:
    Then amid a swift flight of wing’d seed white as curd,
      Clear of limb a Youth smote the master’s gate.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darken’d
                That had thee here obscure.

    Water, first of singers, o’er rocky mount and mead,
      First of earthly singers, the sun-loved rill,
    Sang of him, and flooded the ripples on the reed,
      Seeking whom to waken and what ear fill.
    Water, sweetest soother to kiss a wound and cool,
      Sweetest and divinest, the sky-born brook,
    Chuckled, with a whimper, and made a mirror-pool
      Round the guest we welcomed, the strange hand shook.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darken’d
                That had thee here obscure.

    Many swarms of wild bees descended on our fields:
      Stately stood the wheatstalk with head bent high:
    Big of heart we labour’d at storing mighty yields,
      Wool and corn, and clusters to make men cry!
    Hand-like rush’d the vintage; we strung the bellied skins
      Plump, and at the sealing the Youth’s voice rose:
    Maidens clung in circle, on little fists their chins;
      Gentle beasties through push’d a cold long nose.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darken’d
                That had thee here obscure.

    Foot to fire in snowtime we trimm’d the slender shaft:
      Often down the pit spied the lean wolf’s teeth
    Grin against his will, trapp’d by masterstrokes of craft;
      Helpless in his froth-wrath as green logs seethe!
    Safe the tender lambs tugg’d the teats, and winter sped
      Whirl’d before the crocus, the year’s new gold.
    Hung the hooky beak up aloft, the arrowhead
      Redden’d through his feathers for our dear fold.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darkened
                That had thee here obscure.

    Tales we drank of giants at war with gods above:
      Rocks were they to look on, and earth climb’d air!
    Tales of search for simples, and those who sought of love
      Ease because the creature was all too fair.
    Pleasant ran our thinking that while our work was good,
      Sure as fruits for sweat would the praise come fast.
    He that wrestled stoutest and tamed the billow-brood
      Danced in rings with girls, like a sail-flapp’d mast.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darken’d
                That had thee here obscure.

    Lo, the herb of healing, when once the herb is known,
      Shines in shady woods bright as new-sprung flame.
    Ere the string was tighten’d we heard the mellow tone,
      After he had taught how the sweet sounds came.
    Stretch’d about his feet, labour done, ’twas as you see
      Red pomegranates tumble and burst hard rind.
    So began contention to give delight and be
      Excellent in things aim’d to make life kind.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darken’d
                That had thee here obscure.

    You with shelly horns, rams! and, promontory goats,
      You whose browsing beards dip in coldest dew!
    Bulls, that walk the pastures in kingly-flashing coats!
      Laurel, ivy, vine, wreathed for feasts not few!
    You that build the shade-roof, and you that court the rays,
      You that leap besprinkling the rock stream-rent:
    He has been our fellow, the morning of our days;
      Us he chose for housemates, and this way went.
                God! of whom music
                And song and blood are pure,
                The day is never darken’d
                That had thee here obscure.


_774._ _Tardy Spring_

        Now the North wind ceases,
        The warm South-west awakes;
        Swift fly the fleeces,
        Thick the blossom-flakes.

    Now hill to hill has made the stride,
    And distance waves the without-end:
    Now in the breast a door flings wide;
    Our farthest smiles, our next is friend.
    And song of England’s rush of flowers
    Is this full breeze with mellow stops,
    That spins the lark for shine, for showers;
    He drinks his hurried flight, and drops.
    The stir in memory seem these things,
    Which out of moisten’d turf and clay,
    Astrain for light push patient rings,
    Or leap to find the waterway.
    ’Tis equal to a wonder done,
    Whatever simple lives renew
    Their tricks beneath the father sun,
    As though they caught a broken clue:
    So hard was earth an eyewink back;
    But now the common life has come,
    The blotting cloud a dappled pack,
    The grasses one vast underhum.
    A City clothed in snow and soot,
    With lamps for day in ghostly rows,
    Breaks to the scene of hosts afoot,
    The river that reflective flows:
    And there did fog down crypts of street
    Play spectre upon eye and mouth:--
    Their faces are a glass to greet
    This magic of the whirl for South.
    A burly joy each creature swells
    With sound of its own hungry quest;
    Earth has to fill her empty wells,
    And speed the service of the nest;
    The phantom of the snow-wreath melt,
    That haunts the farmer’s look abroad,
    Who sees what tomb a white night built,
    Where flocks now bleat and sprouts the clod.
    For iron Winter held her firm;
    Across her sky he laid his hand;
    And bird he starved, he stiffen’d worm;
    A sightless heaven, a shaven land.
    Her shivering Spring feign’d fast asleep.
    The bitten buds dared not unfold:
    We raced on roads and ice to keep
    Thought of the girl we love from cold.

        But now the North wind ceases,
        The warm South-west awakes,
        The heavens are out in fleeces,
        And earth’s green banner shakes.


_775._ _Love’s Grave_

    Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like,
    Its skeleton shadow on the broad-back’d wave!
    Here is a fitting spot to dig Love’s grave;
    Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
    And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand:
    In hearing of the ocean, and in sight
    Of those ribb’d wind-streaks running into white.
    If I the death of Love had deeply plann’d,
    I never could have made it half so sure,
    As by the unblest kisses which upbraid
    The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade!
    ’Tis morning: but no morning can restore
    What we have forfeited. I see no sin:
    The wrong is mix’d. In tragic life, God wot,
    No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:
    We are betray’d by what is false within.


_776._ _Lucifer in Starlight_

    On a starr’d night Prince Lucifer uprose.
      Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
      Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen’d,
    Where sinners hugg’d their spectre of repose.
    Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
      And now upon his western wing he lean’d,
      Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careen’d,
    Now the black planet shadow’d Arctic snows.
    Soaring through wider zones that prick’d his scars
      With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
    He reach’d a middle height, and at the stars,
    Which are the brain of heaven, he look’d, and sank.
    Around the ancient track march’d, rank on rank,
      The army of unalterable law.




ALEXANDER SMITH

1829-1867


_777._ _Love_

    The fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays,
      The churlish thistles, scented briers,
    The wind-swept bluebells on the sunny braes,
      Down to the central fires,

    Exist alike in Love. Love is a sea
      Filling all the abysses dim
    Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally
      Suns and their bright broods swim.

    This mighty sea of Love, with wondrous tides,
      Is sternly just to sun and grain;
    ’Tis laving at this moment Saturn’s sides,
      ’Tis in my blood and brain.


    All things have something more than barren use;
      There is a scent upon the brier,
    A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews,
      Cold morns are fringed with fire.

    The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath’d flowers;
      In music dies poor human speech,
    And into beauty blow those hearts of ours
      When Love is born in each.

    Daisies are white upon the churchyard sod,
      Sweet tears the clouds lean down and give.
    The world is very lovely. O my God,
      I thank Thee that I live!


_778._ _Barbara_

          On the Sabbath-day,
          Through the churchyard old and gray,
    Over the crisp and yellow leaves I held my rustling way;
    And amid the words of mercy, falling on my soul like balms,
    ’Mid the gorgeous storms of music--in the mellow organ-calms,
    ’Mid the upward-streaming prayers, and the rich and solemn psalms,
          I stood careless, Barbara.

          My heart was otherwhere,
          While the organ shook the air,
    And the priest, with outspread hands, bless’d the people with a prayer;
    But when rising to go homeward, with a mild and saint-like shine
    Gleam’d a face of airy beauty with its heavenly eyes on mine--
    Gleam’d and vanish’d in a moment--O that face was surely thine
          Out of heaven, Barbara!

          O pallid, pallid face!
          O earnest eyes of grace!
    When last I saw thee, dearest, it was in another place.
    You came running forth to meet me with my love-gift on your wrist:
    The flutter of a long white dress, then all was lost in mist--
    A purple stain of agony was on the mouth I kiss’d,
          That wild morning, Barbara.

          I searched, in my despair,
          Sunny noon and midnight air;
    I could not drive away the thought that you were lingering there.
    O many and many a winter night I sat when you were gone,
    My worn face buried in my hands, beside the fire alone--
    Within the dripping churchyard, the rain plashing on your stone,
          You were sleeping, Barbara.

          ’Mong angels, do you think
          Of the precious golden link
    I clasp’d around your happy arm while sitting by yon brink?
    Or when that night of gliding dance, of laughter and guitars,
    Was emptied of its music, and we watch’d, through lattice-bars,
    The silent midnight heaven creeping o’er us with its stars,
          Till the day broke, Barbara?


          In the years I’ve changed;
          Wild and far my heart has ranged,
    And many sins and errors now have been on me avenged;
    But to you I have been faithful whatsoever good I lack’d:
    I loved you, and above my life still hangs that love intact--
    Your love the trembling rainbow, I the reckless cataract.
          Still I love you, Barbara.

          Yet, Love, I am unblest;
          With many doubts opprest,
    I wander like the desert wind without a place of rest.
    Could I but win you for an hour from off that starry shore,
    The hunger of my soul were still’d; for Death hath told you more
    Than the melancholy world doth know--things deeper than all lore
          You could teach me, Barbara.

          In vain, in vain, in vain!
          You will never come again.
    There droops upon the dreary hills a mournful fringe of rain;
    The gloaming closes slowly round, loud winds are in the tree,
    Round selfish shores for ever moans the hurt and wounded sea;
    There is no rest upon the earth, peace is with Death and thee--
          Barbara!




CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

1830-1894


_779._ _Bride Song_

FROM ‘THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS’

    Too late for love, too late for joy,
      Too late, too late!
    You loiter’d on the road too long,
      You trifled at the gate:
    The enchanted dove upon her branch
      Died without a mate;
    The enchanted princess in her tower
      Slept, died, behind the grate;
    Her heart was starving all this while
      You made it wait.

    Ten years ago, five years ago,
      One year ago,
    Even then you had arrived in time,
      Though somewhat slow;
    Then you had known her living face
      Which now you cannot know:
    The frozen fountain would have leap’d.
      The buds gone on to blow,
    The warm south wind would have awaked
      To melt the snow.

    Is she fair now as she lies?
      Once she was fair;
    Meet queen for any kingly king,
      With gold-dust on her hair.
    Now there are poppies in her locks,
      White poppies she must wear;
    Must wear a veil to shroud her face
      And the want graven there:
    Or is the hunger fed at length,
      Cast off the care?

    We never saw her with a smile
      Or with a frown;
    Her bed seem’d never soft to her,
      Though toss’d of down;
    She little heeded what she wore,
      Kirtle, or wreath, or gown;
    We think her white brows often ached
      Beneath her crown,
    Till silvery hairs show’d in her locks
      That used to be so brown.

    We never heard her speak in haste:
      Her tones were sweet,
    And modulated just so much
      As it was meet:
    Her heart sat silent through the noise
      And concourse of the street.
    There was no hurry in her hands,
      No hurry in her feet;
    There was no bliss drew nigh to her,
      That she might run to greet.

    You should have wept her yesterday,
      Wasting upon her bed:
    But wherefore should you weep to-day
      That she is dead?
    Lo, we who love weep not to-day,
      But crown her royal head.
    Let be these poppies that we strew,
      Your roses are too red:
    Let be these poppies, not for you
      Cut down and spread.


_780._ _A Birthday_

    My heart is like a singing bird
      Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
    My heart is like an apple-tree
      Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
    My heart is like a rainbow shell
      That paddles in a halcyon sea;
    My heart is gladder than all these,
      Because my love is come to me.

    Raise me a daïs of silk and down;
      Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
    Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
      And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
    Work it in gold and silver grapes,
      In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
    Because the birthday of my life
      Is come, my love is come to me.


_781._ _Song_

    When I am dead, my dearest,
      Sing no sad songs for me;
    Plant thou no roses at my head,
      Nor shady cypress tree:
    Be the green grass above me
      With showers and dewdrops wet;
    And if thou wilt, remember.
      And if thou wilt, forget.

    I shall not see the shadows,
      I shall not feel the rain;
    I shall not hear the nightingale
      Sing on, as if in pain;
    And dreaming through the twilight
      That doth not rise nor set,
    Haply I may remember,
      And haply may forget.


_782._ _Twice_

    I took my heart in my hand
      (O my love, O my love),
    I said: Let me fall or stand,
      Let me live or die,
    But this once hear me speak
      (O my love, O my love)--
    Yet a woman’s words are weak;
      You should speak, not I.

    You took my heart in your hand
      With a friendly smile,
    With a critical eye you scann’d,
      Then set it down,
    And said, ‘It is still unripe,
      Better wait awhile;
    Wait while the skylarks pipe,
      Till the corn grows brown.’


    As you set it down it broke--
      Broke, but I did not wince;
    I smiled at the speech you spoke,
      At your judgement I heard:
    But I have not often smiled
      Since then, nor question’d since,
    Nor cared for cornflowers wild,
      Nor sung with the singing bird.

    I take my heart in my hand,
      O my God, O my God,
    My broken heart in my hand:
      Thou hast seen, judge Thou.
    My hope was written on sand,
      O my God, O my God:
    Now let thy judgement stand--
      Yea, judge me now.

    This contemn’d of a man,
      This marr’d one heedless day,
    This heart take thou to scan
      Both within and without:
    Refine with fire its gold,
      Purge Thou its dross away--
    Yea, hold it in Thy hold,
      Whence none can pluck it out.

    I take my heart in my hand--
      I shall not die, but live--
    Before Thy face I stand;
      I, for Thou callest such:
    All that I have I bring,
      All that I am I give,
    Smile Thou and I shall sing,
      But shall not question much.


_783._ _Uphill_

    Does the road wind uphill all the way?
      Yes, to the very end.
    Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
      From morn to night, my friend.

    But is there for the night a resting-place?
      A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin.
    May not the darkness hide it from my face?
      You cannot miss that inn.

    Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
      Those who have gone before.
    Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
      They will not keep you waiting at that door.

    Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
      Of labour you shall find the sum.
    Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
      Yea, beds for all who come.


_784._ _Passing Away_

    Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
    Chances, beauty and youth sapp’d day by day:
    Thy life never continueth in one stay.
    Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to gray
    That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
    I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:
    Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay
    On my bosom for aye.
    Then I answer’d: Yea.


    Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away:
    With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play,
    Hearken what the past doth witness and say:
    Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,
    A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.
    At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day,
    Lo, the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay:
    Watch thou and pray.
    Then I answer’d: Yea.

    Passing away, saith my God, passing away:
    Winter passeth after the long delay:
    New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,
    Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven’s May.
    Though I tarry, wait for me, trust me, watch and pray.
    Arise, come away; night is past, and lo, it is day;
    My love, my sister, my spouse, thou shalt hear me say--
    Then I answer’d: Yea.


_785._ _Marvel of Marvels_

    Marvel of marvels, if I myself shall behold
    With mine own eyes my King in His city of gold;
    Where the least of lambs is spotless white in the fold,
    Where the least and last of saints in spotless white is stoled,
    Where the dimmest head beyond a moon is aureoled.
    O saints, my belovèd, now mouldering to mould in the mould,
    Shall I see you lift your heads, see your cerements unroll’d,
    See with these very eyes? who now in darkness and cold
    Tremble for the midnight cry, the rapture, the tale untold,--
    _The Bridegroom cometh, cometh, His Bride to enfold!_

    Cold it is, my belovèd, since your funeral bell was toll’d:
    Cold it is, O my King, how cold alone on the wold!


_786._ _Is it Well with the Child?_

    Safe where I cannot die yet,
      Safe where I hope to lie too,
    Safe from the fume and the fret;
          You, and you,
      Whom I never forget.
    Safe from the frost and the snow,
      Safe from the storm and the sun,
    Safe where the seeds wait to grow
          One by one,
      And to come back in blow.


_787._ _Remember_

    Remember me when I am gone away,
      Gone far away into the silent land;
      When you can no more hold me by the hand,
    Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
    Remember me when no more day by day
      You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
      Only remember me; you understand
    It will be late to counsel then or pray.
    Yet if you should forget me for a while
      And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
      For if the darkness and corruption leave
      A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
    Better by far you should forget and smile
      Than that you should remember and be sad.


_788._ _Aloof_

    The irresponsive silence of the land,
      The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
      Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
    Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
    Thou too aloof, bound with the flawless band
      Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
      But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
    What heart shall touch thy heart? What hand thy hand?
    And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
      And sometimes I remember days of old
    When fellowship seem’d not so far to seek,
      And all the world and I seem’d much less cold,
      And at the rainbow’s foot lay surely gold,
    And hope felt strong, and life itself not weak.


_789._ _Rest_

    O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
      Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
      Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
    With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
    She hath no questions, she hath no replies,
      Hush’d in and curtain’d with a blessèd dearth
      Of all that irk’d her from the hour of birth;
    With stillness that is almost Paradise.
    Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,
      Silence more musical than any song;
    Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
    Until the morning of Eternity
    Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
      And when she wakes she will not think it long.




THOMAS EDWARD BROWN

1830-1897


_790._ _Dora_

    She knelt upon her brother’s grave,
      My little girl of six years old--
    He used to be so good and brave,
      The sweetest lamb of all our fold;
    He used to shout, he used to sing,
    Of all our tribe the little king--
    And so unto the turf her ear she laid,
    To hark if still in that dark place he play’d.
        No sound! no sound!
        Death’s silence was profound;
        And horror crept
        Into her aching heart, and Dora wept.
        If this is as it ought to be,
        My God, I leave it unto Thee.


_791._ _Jessie_

    When Jessie comes with her soft breast,
      And yields the golden keys,
    Then is it as if God caress’d
      Twin babes upon His knees--
    Twin babes that, each to other press’d,
    Just feel the Father’s arms, wherewith they both are bless’d.

    But when I think if we must part,
      And all this personal dream be fled--
    O then my heart! O then my useless heart!
      Would God that thou wert dead--
    A clod insensible to joys and ills--
    A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills!


_792._ _Salve!_

    To live within a cave--it is most good;
        But, if God make a day,
        And some one come, and say,
    ‘Lo! I have gather’d faggots in the wood!’
        E’en let him stay,
    And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood!

    So sit till morning! when the light is grown
        That he the path can read,
        Then bid the man God-speed!
    His morning is not thine: yet must thou own
    They have a cheerful warmth--those ashes on the stone.


_793_. _My Garden_

    A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!
      Rose plot,
      Fringed pool,
    Fern’d grot--
      The veriest school
      Of peace; and yet the fool
    Contends that God is not--
    Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?
      Nay, but I have a sign;
      ’Tis very sure God walks in mine.




EDWARD ROBERT BULWER LYTTON, EARL OF LYTTON

1831-1892


_794._ _A Night in Italy_

    Sweet are the rosy memories of the lips
      That first kiss’d ours, albeit they kiss no more:
    Sweet is the sight of sunset-sailing ships,
      Altho’ they leave us on a lonely shore:
    Sweet are familiar songs, tho’ Music dips
      Her hollow shell in Thought’s forlornest wells:
      And sweet, tho’ sad, the sound of midnight bells
    When the oped casement with the night-rain drips.

    There is a pleasure which is born of pain:
      The grave of all things hath its violet.
    Else why, thro’ days which never come again,
      Roams Hope with that strange longing, like Regret?
    Why put the posy in the cold dead hand?
      Why plant the rose above the lonely grave?
      Why bring the corpse across the salt sea-wave?
    Why deem the dead more near in native land?

    Thy name hath been a silence in my life
      So long, it falters upon language now,
    O more to me than sister or than wife,
      Once ... and now--nothing! It is hard to know
    That such things have been, and are not; and yet
      Life loiters, keeps a pulse at even measure,
      And goes upon its business and its pleasure,
    And knows not all the depths of its regret....

    Ah, could the memory cast her spots, as do
      The snake’s brood theirs in spring! and be once more
    Wholly renew’d, to dwell i’ the time that’s new,
      With no reiterance of those pangs of yore.
    Peace, peace! My wild song will go wandering
      Too wantonly, down paths a private pain
      Hath trodden bare. What was it jarr’d the strain?
    Some crush’d illusion, left with crumpled wing

    Tangled in Music’s web of twinèd strings--
      That started that false note, and crack’d the tune
    In its beginning. Ah, forgotten things
      Stumble back strangely! and the ghost of June
    Stands by December’s fire, cold, cold! and puts
      The last spark out.--How could I sing aright
      With those old airs haunting me all the night
    And those old steps that sound when daylight shuts?

    For back she comes, and moves reproachfully,
      The mistress of my moods, and looks bereft
    (Cruel to the last!) as tho’ ’twere I, not she,
      That did the wrong, and broke the spell, and left
    Memory comfortless.--Away! away!
      Phantoms, about whose brows the bindweed clings,
      Hopeless regret! In thinking of these things
    Some men have lost their minds, and others may.

    Yet, O for one deep draught in this dull hour!
      One deep, deep draught of the departed time!
    O for one brief strong pulse of ancient power,
      To beat and breathe thro’ all the valves of rhyme!
    Thou, Memory, with thy downward eyes, that art
      The cup-bearer of gods, pour deep and long,
      Brim all the vacant chalices of song
    With health! Droop down thine urn. I hold my heart
    One draught of what I shall not taste again
      Save when my brain with thy dark wine is brimm’d,--
    One draught! and then straight onward, spite of pain,
      And spite of all things changed, with gaze undimm’d,
    Love’s footsteps thro’ the waning Past to explore
      Undaunted; and to carve in the wan light
      Of Hope’s last outposts, on Song’s utmost height,
    The sad resemblance of an hour or more.

    Midnight, and love, and youth, and Italy!
      Love in the land where love most lovely seems!
    Land of my love, tho’ I be far from thee,
      Lend, for love’s sake, the light of thy moonbeams,
    The spirit of thy cypress-groves and all
      Thy dark-eyed beauty for a little while
      To my desire. Yet once more let her smile
    Fall o’er me: o’er me let her long hair fall....

    Under the blessèd darkness unreproved
      We were alone, in that best hour of time
    Which first reveal’d to us how much we loved,
      ’Neath the thick starlight. The young night sublime
    Hung trembling o’er us. At her feet I knelt,
      And gazed up from her feet into her eyes.
      Her face was bow’d: we breathed each other’s sighs:
    We did not speak: not move: we look’d: we felt.

    The night said not a word. The breeze was dead.
      The leaf lay without whispering on the tree,
    As I lay at her feet. Droop’d was her head:
      One hand in mine: and one still pensively
    Went wandering through my hair. We were together.
      How? Where? What matter? Somewhere in a dream,
      Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream:
    Whither? Together: then what matter whither?

    It was enough for me to clasp her hand:
      To blend with her love-looks my own: no more.
    Enough (with thoughts like ships that cannot land,
      Blown by faint winds about a magic shore)
    To realize, in each mysterious feeling,
      The droop of the warm cheek so near my own:
      The cool white arm about my shoulder thrown:
    Those exquisite fair feet where I was kneeling.

    How little know they life’s divinest bliss,
      That know not to possess and yet refrain!
    Let the young Psyche roam, a fleeting kiss:
      Grasp it--a few poor grains of dust remain.
    See how those floating flowers, the butterflies,
      Hover the garden thro’, and take no root!
      Desire for ever hath a flying foot:
    Free pleasure comes and goes beneath the skies.

    Close not thy hand upon the innocent joy
      That trusts itself within thy reach. It may,
    Or may not, linger. Thou canst but destroy
      The wingèd wanderer. Let it go or stay.
    Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
      Think! Midas starved by turning all to gold.
      Blessèd are those that spare, and that withhold;
    Because the whole world shall be trusted them.

    The foolish Faun pursues the unwilling Nymph
      That culls her flowers beside the precipice
    Or dips her shining ankles in the lymph:
      But, just when she must perish or be his,
    Heaven puts an arm out. She is safe. The shore
      Gains some new fountain; or the lilied lawn
      A rarer sort of rose: but ah, poor Faun!
    To thee she shall be changed for evermore.

    Chase not too close the fading rapture. Leave
      To Love his long auroras, slowly seen.
    Be ready to release as to receive.
      Deem those the nearest, soul to soul, between
    Whose lips yet lingers reverence on a sigh.
      Judge what thy sense can reach not, most thine own,
      If once thy soul hath seized it. The unknown
    Is life to love, religion, poetry.

    The moon had set. There was not any light,
      Save of the lonely legion’d watch-stars pale
    In outer air, and what by fits made bright
      Hot oleanders in a rosy vale
    Searched by the lamping fly, whose little spark
      Went in and out, like passion’s bashful hope.
      Meanwhile the sleepy globe began to slope
    A ponderous shoulder sunward thro’ the dark.

    And the night pass’d in beauty like a dream.
      Aloof in those dark heavens paused Destiny,
    With her last star descending in the gleam
      Of the cold morrow, from the emptied sky.
    The hour, the distance from her old self, all
      The novelty and loneness of the place
      Had left a lovely awe on that fair face,
    And all the land grew strange and magical.

    As droops some billowy cloud to the crouch’d hill,
      Heavy with all heaven’s tears, for all earth’s care,
    She droop’d unto me, without force or will,
      And sank upon my bosom, murmuring there
    A woman’s inarticulate passionate words.
      O moment of all moments upon earth!
      O life’s supreme! How worth, how wildly worth,
    Whole worlds of flame, to know this world affords.

    What even Eternity can not restore!
      When all the ends of life take hands and meet
    Round centres of sweet fire. Ah, never more,
      Ah never, shall the bitter with the sweet
    Be mingled so in the pale after-years!
      One hour of life immortal spirits possess.
      This drains the world, and leaves but weariness,
    And parching passion, and perplexing tears.

    Sad is it, that we cannot even keep
      That hour to sweeten life’s last toil: but Youth
    Grasps all, and leaves us: and when we would weep,
      We dare not let our tears fall, lest, in truth,
    They fall upon our work which must be done.
      And so we bind up our torn hearts from breaking:
      Our eyes from weeping, and our brows from aching:
    And follow the long pathway all alone.


_795._ _The Last Wish_

    Since all that I can ever do for thee
    Is to do nothing, this my prayer must be:
    That thou mayst never guess nor ever see
    The all-endured this nothing-done costs me.




JAMES THOMSON

1834-1882


_796._ _In the Train_

    As we rush, as we rush in the Train,
      The trees and the houses go wheeling back,
    But the starry heavens above the plain
      Come flying on our track.

    All the beautiful stars of the sky,
      The silver doves of the forest of Night,
    Over the dull earth swarm and fly,
      Companions of our flight.

    We will rush ever on without fear;
      Let the goal be far, the flight be fleet!
    For we carry the Heavens with us, dear,
      While the Earth slips from our feet!


_797._ _Sunday up the River_

    My love o’er the water bends dreaming;
      It glideth and glideth away:
    She sees there her own beauty, gleaming
      Through shadow and ripple and spray.

    O tell her, thou murmuring river,
      As past her your light wavelets roll,
    How steadfast that image for ever
      Shines pure in pure depths of my soul.


_798._ _Gifts_

    Give a man a horse he can ride,
      Give a man a boat he can sail;
    And his rank and wealth, his strength and health,
      On sea nor shore shall fail.

    Give a man a pipe he can smoke,
      Give a man a book he can read:
    And his home is bright with a calm delight,
      Though the room be poor indeed.

    Give a man a girl he can love,
      As I, O my love, love thee;
    And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate,
      At home, on land, on sea.


_799._ _The Vine_

    The wine of Love is music,
      And the feast of Love is song:
    And when Love sits down to the banquet,
        Love sits long:

    Sits long and arises drunken,
      But not with the feast and the wine;
    He reeleth with his own heart,
        That great, rich Vine.




WILLIAM MORRIS

1834-1896


_800._ _Summer Dawn_

    Pray but one prayer for me ’twixt thy closed lips,
      Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
    The summer night waneth, the morning light slips
      Faint and gray ’twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars,
    That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:
      Patient and colourless, though Heaven’s gold
    Waits to float through them along with the sun.
    Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
      The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold
    The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
    Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn
    Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.
        Speak but one word to me over the corn,
        Over the tender, bow’d locks of the corn.


_801._ _Love is enough_

    Love is enough: though the World be a-waning,
    And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
      Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
    The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
    Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
      And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass’d over,
    Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
    The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
      These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.


_802._ _The Nymph’s Song to Hylas_

    I know a little garden-close
    Set thick with lily and red rose,
    Where I would wander if I might
    From dewy dawn to dewy night,
    And have one with me wandering.

    And though within it no birds sing,
    And though no pillar’d house is there,
    And though the apple boughs are bare
    Of fruit and blossom, would to God,
    Her feet upon the green grass trod,
    And I beheld them as before!

    There comes a murmur from the shore,
    And in the place two fair streams are,
    Drawn from the purple hills afar,
    Drawn down unto the restless sea;
    The hills whose flowers ne’er fed the bee,
    The shore no ship has ever seen,
    Still beaten by the billows green,
    Whose murmur comes unceasingly
    Unto the place for which I cry.

    For which I cry both day and night,
    For which I let slip all delight,
    That maketh me both deaf and blind,
    Careless to win, unskill’d to find,
    And quick to lose what all men seek.

    Yet tottering as I am, and weak,
    Still have I left a little breath
    To seek within the jaws of death
    An entrance to that happy place;
    To seek the unforgotten face
    Once seen, once kiss’d, once reft from me
    Anigh the murmuring of the sea.




RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL

1834-1894


_803._ _The Water-Nymph and the Boy_

    I flung me round him,
    I drew him under;
    I clung, I drown’d him,
    My own white wonder!...

      Father and mother,
      Weeping and wild,
      Came to the forest,
      Calling the child,
      Came from the palace,
      Down to the pool,
      Calling my darling,
      My beautiful!
      Under the water,
      Cold and so pale!
      Could it be love made
      Beauty to fail?

      Ah me for mortals!
      In a few moons,
      If I had left him,
      After some Junes
      He would have faded,
      Faded away,
      He, the young monarch, whom
      All would obey,
      Fairer than day;
      Alien to springtime,
      Joyless and gray,
      He would have faded,
      Faded away,
      Moving a mockery,
      Scorn’d of the day!
      Now I have taken him
      All in his prime,
      Saved from slow poisoning
      Pitiless Time,
      Fill’d with his happiness,
      One with the prime,
      Saved from the cruel
      Dishonour of Time.
      Laid him, my beautiful,
      Laid him to rest,
      Loving, adorable,
      Softly to rest,
      Here in my crystalline,
      Here in my breast!


_804._ _The Old_

    They are waiting on the shore
      For the bark to take them home:
    They will toil and grieve no more;
      The hour for release hath come.

    All their long life lies behind
      Like a dimly blending dream:
    There is nothing left to bind
      To the realms that only seem.

    They are waiting for the boat;
      There is nothing left to do:
    What was near them grows remote,
      Happy silence falls like dew;
    Now the shadowy bark is come,
      And the weary may go home.

    By still water they would rest
      In the shadow of the tree:
    After battle sleep is best,
      After noise, tranquillity.




THOMAS ASHE

1836-1889


_805._ _Meet We no Angels, Pansie?_

    Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet,
      In white, to find her lover;
    The grass grew proud beneath her feet,
      The green elm-leaves above her:--
        Meet we no angels, Pansie?

    She said, ‘We meet no angels now’;
      And soft lights stream’d upon her;
    And with white hand she touch’d a bough;
      She did it that great honour:--
        What! meet no angels, Pansie?

    O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes,
      Down-dropp’d brown eyes, so tender!
    Then what said I? Gallant replies
      Seem flattery, and offend her:--
        But--meet no angels, Pansie?


_806._ _To Two Bereaved_

    You must be sad; for though it is to Heaven,
    ’Tis hard to yield a little girl of seven.
    Alas, for me ’tis hard my grief to rule,
    Who only met her as she went to school;
    Who never heard the little lips so sweet
    Say even ‘Good-morning,’ though our eyes would meet
    As whose would fain be friends! How must you sigh,
    Sick for your loss, when even so sad am I,
    Who never clasp’d the small hands any day!
    Fair flowers thrive round the little grave, I pray.




THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON

1836-1914


_807._ _Wassail Chorus at the Mermaid Tavern_

    Christmas knows a merry, merry place,
        Where he goes with fondest face,
      Brightest eye, brightest hair:
    Tell the Mermaid where is that one place,
            Where?

    _Raleigh._

    ’Tis by Devon’s glorious halls,
      Whence, dear Ben, I come again:
    Bright of golden roofs and walls--
      El Dorado’s rare domain--
      Seem those halls when sunlight launches
      Shafts of gold thro’ leafless branches,
    Where the winter’s feathery mantle blanches
            Field and farm and lane.

    CHORUS. Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

    _Drayton._

      ’Tis where Avon’s wood-sprites weave
        Through the boughs a lace of rime,
      While the bells of Christmas Eve
        Fling for Will the Stratford-chime
      O’er the river-flags emboss’d
      Rich with flowery runes of frost--
    O’er the meads where snowy tufts are toss’d--
            Strains of olden time.

    CHORUS. Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

    _Shakespeare’s Friend._

      ’Tis, methinks, on any ground
        Where our Shakespeare’s feet are set.
      There smiles Christmas, holly-crown’d
        With his blithest coronet:
      Friendship’s face he loveth well:
      ’Tis a countenance whose spell
    Sheds a balm o’er every mead and dell
            Where we used to fret.

    CHORUS. Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

    _Heywood._

      More than all the pictures, Ben,
        Winter weaves by wood or stream,
      Christmas loves our London, when
        Rise thy clouds of wassail-steam--
      Clouds like these, that, curling, take
      Forms of faces gone, and wake
    Many a lay from lips we loved, and make
            London like a dream.

    CHORUS. Christmas knows a merry, merry place, &c.

    _Ben Jonson._

      Love’s old songs shall never die,
        Yet the new shall suffer proof:
      Love’s old drink of Yule brew I
        Wassail for new love’s behoof.
      Drink the drink I brew, and sing
      Till the berried branches swing,
    Till our song make all the Mermaid ring--
            Yea, from rush to roof.

    FINALE.

      Christmas loves this merry, merry place;
        Christmas saith with fondest face,
          Brightest eye, brightest hair:
    ‘Ben, the drink tastes rare of sack and mace;
            Rare!’




ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

1837-1909


_808._ _Chorus from ‘Atalanta’_

    When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,
      The mother of months in meadow or plain
    Fills the shadows and windy places
      With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
    And the brown bright nightingale amorous
    Is half assuaged for Itylus,
    For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces.
      The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

    Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
      Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
    With a noise of winds and many rivers,
      With a clamour of waters, and with might;
    Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
    Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;
    For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
      Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

    Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
      Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?
    O that man’s heart were as fire and could spring to her,
      Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
    For the stars and the winds are unto her
    As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
    For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
      And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

    For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
      And all the season of snows and sins;
    The days dividing lover and lover,
      The light that loses, the night that wins;
    And time remember’d is grief forgotten,
    And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
    And in green underwood and cover
      Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

    The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
      Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,
    The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
      From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;
    And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
    And the oat is heard above the lyre,
    And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes
      The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.


    And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
      Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
    Follows with dancing and fills with delight
      The Mænad and the Bassarid;
    And soft as lips that laugh and hide
    The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
    And screen from seeing and leave in sight
      The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

    The ivy falls with the Bacchanal’s hair
      Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes;
    The wild vine slipping down leaves bare
      Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
    The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
    But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
    To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
      The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.


_809._ _Hertha_

              I am that which began;
                Out of me the years roll;
              Out of me God and man;
                I am equal and whole;
    God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.

              Before ever land was,
                Before ever the sea,
              Or soft hair of the grass,
                Or fair limbs of the tree,
    Or the flesh-colour’d fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me.

              First life on my sources
                First drifted and swam;
              Out of me are the forces
                That save it or damn;
    Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird: before God was, I am.

              Beside or above me
                Naught is there to go;
              Love or unlove me,
                Unknow me or know,
    I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.

              I the mark that is miss’d
                And the arrows that miss,
              I the mouth that is kiss’d
                And the breath in the kiss,
    The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is.

              I am that thing which blesses
                My spirit elate;
              That which caresses
                With hands uncreate
    My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate.

              But what thing dost thou now,
                Looking Godward, to cry,
              ‘I am I, thou art thou,
                I am low, thou art high’?
    I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thou art I.

              I the grain and the furrow,
                The plough-cloven clod
              And the ploughshare drawn thorough,
                The germ and the sod,
    The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.

              Hast thou known how I fashion’d thee,
                Child, underground?
              Fire that impassion’d thee,
                Iron that bound,
    Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found?

              Canst thou say in thine heart
                Thou hast seen with thine eyes
              With what cunning of art
                Thou wast wrought in what wise,
    By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to the skies?

              Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,
                Knowledge of me?
              Has the wilderness told it thee?
                Hast thou learnt of the sea?
    Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counsel with thee?

              Have I set such a star
                To show light on thy brow
              That thou sawest from afar
                What I show to thee now?
    Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou?

              What is here, dost thou know it?
                What was, hast thou known?
              Prophet nor poet
                Nor tripod nor throne
    Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.

              Mother, not maker,
                Born, and not made;
              Though her children forsake her,
                Allured or afraid,
    Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for all that have pray’d.

              A creed is a rod,
                And a crown is of night;
              But this thing is God,
                To be man with thy might,
    To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light.

              I am in thee to save thee,
                As my soul in thee saith;
              Give thou as I gave thee,
                Thy life-blood and breath,
    Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red fruit of thy death.

              Be the ways of thy giving
                As mine were to thee;
              The free life of thy living,
                Be the gift of it free;
    Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give thee to me.

              O children of banishment,
                Souls overcast,
              Were the lights ye see vanish meant
                Alway to last,
    Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars overpast.

              I that saw where ye trod
                The dim paths of the night
              Set the shadow call’d God
                In your skies to give light;
    But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in sight.

              The tree many-rooted
                That swells to the sky
              With frondage red-fruited,
                The life-tree am I;
    In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live and not die.

              But the Gods of your fashion
                That take and that give,
              In their pity and passion
                That scourge and forgive,
    They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shall die and not live.

              My own blood is what stanches
                The wounds in my bark;
              Stars caught in my branches
                Make day of the dark,
    And are worshipp’d as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark.

              Where dead ages hide under
                The live roots of the tree,
              In my darkness the thunder
                Makes utterance of me;
    In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea.

              That noise is of Time,
                As his feathers are spread
              And his feet set to climb
                Through the boughs overhead,
    And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with his tread.

              The storm-winds of ages
                Blow through me and cease,
              The war-wind that rages,
                The spring-wind of peace,
    Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.

              All sounds of all changes,
                All shadows and lights
              On the world’s mountain-ranges
                And stream-riven heights,
    Whose tongue is the wind’s tongue and language of storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights;

              All forms of all faces,
                All works of all hands
              In unsearchable places
                Of time-stricken lands,
    All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.

              Though sore be my burden
                And more than ye know,
              And my growth have no guerdon
                But only to grow,
    Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.

              These too have their part in me,
                As I too in these;
              Such fire is at heart in me,
                Such sap is this tree’s,
    Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.

              In the spring-colour’d hours
                When my mind was as May’s
              There brake forth of me flowers
                By centuries of days,
    Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays.

              And the sound of them springing
                And smell of their shoots
              Were as warmth and sweet singing
                And strength to my roots;
    And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were my fruits.

              I bid you but be;
                I have need not of prayer;
              I have need of you free
                As your mouths of mine air;
    That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of me fair.

              More fair than strange fruit is
                Of faiths ye espouse;
              In me only the root is
                That blooms in your boughs;
    Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of your vows.

              In the darkening and whitening
                Abysses adored,
              With dayspring and lightning
                For lamp and for sword,
    God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.

              O my sons, O too dutiful
                Toward Gods not of me,
              Was not I enough beautiful?
                Was it hard to be free?
    For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.

              Lo, wing’d with world’s wonders,
                With miracles shod,
              With the fires of his thunders
                For raiment and rod,
    God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of God.

              For his twilight is come on him,
                His anguish is here;
              And his spirits gaze dumb on him,
                Grown gray from his fear;
    And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.
              Thought made him and breaks him,
                Truth slays and forgives;
              But to you, as time takes him,
                This new thing it gives,
    Even love, the belovèd Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.

              For truth only is living,
                Truth only is whole,
              And the love of his giving
                Man’s polestar and pole;
    Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.

              One birth of my bosom;
                One beam of mine eye;
              One topmost blossom
                That scales the sky;
    Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.


_810._ _Ave atque Vale_

(IN MEMORY OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE)

    Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
        Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
        Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
    Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,
        Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,
        Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?
    Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,
        Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat
        And full of bitter summer, but more sweet
    To thee than gleanings of a northern shore
        Trod by no tropic feet?

    For always thee the fervid languid glories
        Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies;
        Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs
    Where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories,
        The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave
        That knows not where is that Leucadian grave
    Which hides too deep the supreme head of song.
        Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were,
        The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear
    Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong,
        Blind gods that cannot spare.

    Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother,
        Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us:
        Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous,
    Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none other
        Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime;
        The hidden harvest of luxurious time,
    Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech;
        And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep
        Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep;
    And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each,
        Seeing as men sow men reap.

    O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,
        That were athirst for sleep and no more life
        And no more love, for peace and no more strife!
    Now the dim gods of death have in their keeping
        Spirit and body and all the springs of song,
        Is it well now where love can do no wrong,
    Where stingless pleasure has no foam or fang
        Behind the unopening closure of her lips?
        Is it not well where soul from body slips
    And flesh from bone divides without a pang
        As dew from flower-bell drips?

    It is enough; the end and the beginning
        Are one thing to thee, who art past the end.
        O hand unclasp’d of unbeholden friend,
    For thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning,
        No triumph and no labour and no lust,
        Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust.
    O quiet eyes wherein the light saith naught,
        Whereto the day is dumb, nor any night
        With obscure finger silences your sight,
    Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought,
        Sleep, and have sleep for light.

    Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over,
        Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet,
        Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet
    Of some pale Titan-woman like a lover,
        Such as thy vision here solicited,
        Under the shadow of her fair vast head,
    The deep division of prodigious breasts,
        The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep,
        The weight of awful tresses that still keep
    The savour and shade of old-world pine-forests
        Where the wet hill-winds weep?

    Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision?
        O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom,
        Hast thou found sown, what gather’d in the gloom?
    What of despair, of rapture, of derision,
        What of life is there, what of ill or good?
        Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood?
    Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours,
        The faint fields quicken any terrene root,
        In low lands where the sun and moon are mute
    And all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers
        At all, or any fruit?

    Alas, but though my flying song flies after,
        O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet
        Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet,
    Some dim derision of mysterious laughter
        From the blind tongueless warders of the dead,
        Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine’s veil’d head,
    Some little sound of unregarded tears
        Wept by effaced unprofitable eyes,
        And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs--
    These only, these the hearkening spirit hears,
        Sees only such things rise.

    Thou art far too far for wings of words to follow,
        Far too far off for thought or any prayer.
        What ails us with thee, who art wind and air?
    What ails us gazing where all seen is hollow?
        Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire,
        Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire,
    Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find.
        Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies,
        The low light fails us in elusive skies,
    Still the foil’d earnest ear is deaf, and blind
        Are still the eluded eyes.


    Not thee, O never thee, in all time’s changes,
        Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul,
        The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scroll
    I lay my hand on, and not death estranges
        My spirit from communion of thy song--
        These memories and these melodies that throng
    Veil’d porches of a Muse funereal--
        These I salute, these touch, these clasp and fold
        As though a hand were in my hand to hold,
    Or through mine ears a mourning musical
        Of many mourners roll’d.

    I among these, I also, in such station
        As when the pyre was charr’d, and piled the sods.
        And offering to the dead made, and their gods,
    The old mourners had, standing to make libation,
        I stand, and to the Gods and to the dead
        Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed
    Offering to these unknown, the gods of gloom,
        And what of honey and spice my seed-lands bear,
        And what I may of fruits in this chill’d air,
    And lay, Orestes-like, across the tomb
        A curl of sever’d hair.

    But by no hand nor any treason stricken,
        Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King,
        The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing,
    Thou liest and on this dust no tears could quicken.
        There fall no tears like theirs that all men hear
        Fall tear by sweet imperishable tear
    Down the opening leaves of holy poets’ pages.
        Thee not Orestes, not Electra mourns;
        But bending us-ward with memorial urns
    The most high Muses that fulfil all ages
        Weep, and our God’s heart yearns.

    For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often
        Among us darkling here the lord of light
        Makes manifest his music and his might
    In hearts that open and in lips that soften
        With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine.
        Thy lips indeed he touch’d with bitter wine,
    And nourish’d them indeed with bitter bread;
        Yet surely from his hand thy soul’s food came,
        The fire that scarr’d thy spirit at his flame
    Was lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed
        Who feeds our hearts with fame.

    Therefore he too now at thy soul’s sunsetting,
        God of all suns and songs, he too bends down
        To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown,
    And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting.
        Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art,
        Compassionate, with sad and sacred heart,
    Mourns thee of many his children the last dead,
        And hallows with strange tears and alien sighs
        Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes,
    And over thine irrevocable head
        Sheds light from the under skies.

    And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean,
        And stains with tears her changing bosom chill;
        That obscure Venus of the hollow hill,
    That thing transformed which was the Cytherean,
        With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine
        Long since, and face no more call’d Erycine--
    A ghost, a bitter and luxurious god.
        Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell
        Did she, a sad and second prey, compel
    Into the footless places once more trod,
        And shadows hot from hell.

    And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom,
        No choral salutation lure to light
        A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night
    And love’s tired eyes and hands and barren bosom.
        There is no help for these things; none to mend,
        And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend,
    Will make death clear or make life durable.
        Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine
        And with wild notes about this dust of thine
    At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell
        And wreathe an unseen shrine.

    Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,
        If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;
        And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.
    Out of the mystic and the mournful garden
        Where all day through thine hands in barren braid
        Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade,
    Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants gray,
        Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted,
        Passions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started,
    Shall death not bring us all as thee one day
        Among the days departed?

    For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother,
        Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.
        Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell,
    And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother,
        With sadder than the Niobean womb,
        And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb.
    Content thee, howsoe’er, whose days are done;
        There lies not any troublous thing before,
        Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,
    For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,
        All waters as the shore.


_811._ _Itylus_

    Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,
      How can thine heart be full of the spring?
        A thousand summers are over and dead.
    What hast thou found in the spring to follow?
      What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?
        What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?

    O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,
      Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,
        The soft south whither thine heart is set?
    Shall not the grief of the old time follow?
      Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?
        Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?

    Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,
      Thy way is long to the sun and the south;
        But I, fulfill’d of my heart’s desire,
    Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,
      From tawny body and sweet small mouth
        Feed the heart of the night with fire.

    I the nightingale all spring through,
      O swallow, sister, O changing swallow,
        All spring through till the spring be done,
    Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,
      Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,
        Take flight and follow and find the sun.

    Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,
      Though all things feast in the spring’s guest-chamber,
        How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?
    For where thou fliest I shall not follow,
      Till life forget and death remember,
        Till thou remember and I forget.

    Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,
      I know not how thou hast heart to sing.
        Hast thou the heart? is it all past over?
    Thy lord the summer is good to follow,
      And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:
        But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?

    O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,
      My heart in me is a molten ember
        And over my head the waves have met.
    But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow
      Could I forget or thou remember,
        Couldst thou remember and I forget.

    O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,
      The heart’s division divideth us.
        Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;
    But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow
      To the place of the slaying of Itylus,
        The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.

    O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,
      I pray thee sing not a little space.


        Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?
    The woven web that was plain to follow,
      The small slain body, the flower-like face,
        Can I remember if thou forget?

    O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!
      The hands that cling and the feet that follow,
        The voice of the child’s blood crying yet,
    _Who hath remember’d me? who hath forgotten?_
      Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
        But the world shall end when I forget.




WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

b. 1837


_812._ _Earliest Spring_

    Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,
      Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,
    Through all the moaning chimneys, and ’thwart all the hollows and angles
      Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.

    But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow
      Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift
    Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,
      Deep in the oak’s chill core, under the gathering drift.

    Nay, to earth’s life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire
      (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes--
    Rapture of life ineffable, perfect--as if in the brier,
      Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.




BRET HARTE

1839-1902


_813._ _What the Bullet sang_

    O joy of creation,
            To be!
    O rapture, to fly
            And be free!
    Be the battle lost or won,
    Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
    I shall find my love--the one
            Born for me!

    I shall know him where he stands
            All alone,
    With the power in his hands
            Not o’erthrown;
    I shall know him by his face,
    By his godlike front and grace;
    I shall hold him for a space
            All my own!

    It is he--O my love!
            So bold!
    It is I--all thy love
            Foretold!
    It is I--O love, what bliss!
    Dost thou answer to my kiss?
    O sweetheart! what is this
            Lieth there so cold?




JOHN TODHUNTER

1839-1916


_814._ _Maureen_

    O you plant the pain in my heart with your wistful eyes,
              Girl of my choice, Maureen!
    Will you drive me mad for the kisses your shy, sweet mouth denies,
              Maureen?

    Like a walking ghost I am, and no words to woo,
              White rose of the West, Maureen:
    For it’s pale you are, and the fear that’s on you is over me too,
              Maureen!

    Sure it’s one complaint that’s on us, asthore, this day,
              Bride of my dreams, Maureen:
    The smart of the bee that stung us his honey must cure, they say,
              Maureen!

    I’ll coax the light to your eyes, and the rose to your face,
              Mavourneen, my own Maureen!
    When I feel the warmth of your breast, and your nest is my arm’s embrace,
              Maureen!

    O where was the King o’ the World that day--only me?
              My one true love, Maureen!
    And you the Queen with me there, and your throne in my heart, machree,
              Maureen!


_815._ _Aghadoe_

    There’s a glade in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
      There’s a green and silent glade in Aghadoe,
    Where we met, my love and I, Love’s fair planet in the sky,
      O’er that sweet and silent glade in Aghadoe.

    There’s a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
      There’s a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe,
    Where I hid from the eyes of the red-coats and their spies,
      That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.

    O, my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
      On Shaun Dhu, my mother’s son in Aghadoe!
    When your throat fries in hell’s drouth, salt the flame be in your mouth,
      For the treachery you did in Aghadoe!

    For they track’d me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
      When the price was on his head in Aghadoe:
    O’er the mountain, through the wood, as I stole to him with food,
      Where in hiding lone he lay in Aghadoe.

    But they never took him living in Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
      With the bullets in his heart in Aghadoe,
    There he lay, the head, my breast keeps the warmth of where ’twould rest,
      Gone, to win the traitor’s gold, from Aghadoe!

    I walk’d to Mallow town from Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
      Brought his head from the gaol’s gate to Aghadoe;
    Then I cover’d him with fern, and I piled on him the cairn,
      Like an Irish King he sleeps in Aghadoe.


    O, to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe!
      There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe!
    Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I,
      Your own love, cold on your cairn in Aghadoe.




WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT

b. 1840


_816._ _Song_

    O fly not, Pleasure, pleasant-hearted Pleasure;
      Fold me thy wings, I prithee, yet and stay:
        For my heart no measure
        Knows, nor other treasure
      To buy a garland for my love to-day.

    And thou, too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sorrow,
      Thou gray-eyed mourner, fly not yet away:
        For I fain would borrow
        Thy sad weeds to-morrow,
      To make a mourning for love’s yesterday.

    The voice of Pity, Time’s divine dear Pity,
      Moved me to tears: I dared not say them nay,
        But passed forth from the city,
        Making thus my ditty
      Of fair love lost for ever and a day.

_817._ _The Desolate City_

    Dark to me is the earth. Dark to me are the heavens.
      Where is she that I loved, the woman with eyes like stars?
    Desolate are the streets. Desolate is the city.
      A city taken by storm, where none are left but the slain.


    Sadly I rose at dawn, undid the latch of my shutters,
      Thinking to let in light, but I only let in love.
    Birds in the boughs were awake; I listen’d to their chaunting;
      Each one sang to his love; only I was alone.

    This, I said in my heart, is the hour of life and of pleasure.
      Now each creature on earth has his joy, and lives in the sun,
    Each in another’s eyes finds light, the light of compassion,
      This is the moment of pity, this is the moment of love.

    Speak, O desolate city! Speak, O silence in sadness!
      Where is she that I loved in my strength, that spoke to my soul?
    Where are those passionate eyes that appeal’d to my eyes in passion?
      Where is the mouth that kiss’d me, the breast I laid to my own?

    Speak, thou soul of my soul, for rage in my heart is kindled.
      Tell me, where didst thou flee in the day of destruction and fear?
    See, my arms still enfold thee, enfolding thus all heaven,
      See, my desire is fulfill’d in thee, for it fills the earth.

    Thus in my grief I lamented. Then turn’d I from the window,
      Turn’d to the stair, and the open door, and the empty street,
    Crying aloud in my grief, for there was none to chide me,
      None to mock my weakness, none to behold my tears.

    Groping I went, as blind. I sought her house, my belovèd’s.
      There I stopp’d at the silent door, and listen’d and tried the latch.
    Love, I cried, dost thou slumber? This is no hour for slumber,
      This is the hour of love, and love I bring in my hand.


    I knew the house, with its windows barr’d, and its leafless fig-tree,
      Climbing round by the doorstep, the only one in the street;
    I knew where my hope had climb’d to its goal and there encircled
      All that those desolate walls once held, my belovèd’s heart.

    There in my grief she consoled me. She loved me when I loved not.
      She put her hand in my hand, and set her lips to my lips.
    She told me all her pain and show’d me all her trouble.
      I, like a fool, scarce heard, hardly return’d her kiss.

    Love, thy eyes were like torches. They changed as I beheld them.
      Love, thy lips were like gems, the seal thou settest on my life.
    Love, if I loved not then, behold this hour thy vengeance;
      This is the fruit of thy love and thee, the unwise grown wise.

    Weeping strangled my voice. I call’d out, but none answer’d;
      Blindly the windows gazed back at me, dumbly the door;
    She whom I love, who loved me, look’d not on my yearning,
      Gave me no more her hands to kiss, show’d me no more her soul.

    Therefore the earth is dark to me, the sunlight blackness,
      Therefore I go in tears and alone, by night and day;
    Therefore I find no love in heaven, no light, no beauty,
      A heaven taken by storm, where none are left but the slain!


_818._ _With Esther_

    He who has once been happy is for aye
      Out of destruction’s reach. His fortune then
    Holds nothing secret; and Eternity,
      Which is a mystery to other men,
    Has like a woman given him its joy.
      Time is his conquest. Life, if it should fret,
    Has paid him tribute. He can bear to die,
      He who has once been happy! When I set
    The world before me and survey its range,
      Its mean ambitions, its scant fantasies,
    The shreds of pleasure which for lack of change
      Men wrap around them and call happiness,
    The poor delights which are the tale and sum
      Of the world’s courage in its martyrdom;

    When I hear laughter from a tavern door,
      When I see crowds agape and in the rain
    Watching on tiptoe and with stifled roar
      To see a rocket fired or a bull slain,
    When misers handle gold, when orators
      Touch strong men’s hearts with glory till they weep,
    When cities deck their streets for barren wars
      Which have laid waste their youth, and when I keep
    Calmly the count of my own life and see
      On what poor stuff my manhood’s dreams were fed
    Till I too learn’d what dole of vanity
      Will serve a human soul for daily bread,
    --Then I remember that I once was young
      And lived with Esther the world’s gods among.


_819._ _To Manon, on his Fortune in loving Her_

    I did not choose thee, dearest. It was Love
    That made the choice, not I. Mine eyes were blind
    As a rude shepherd’s who to some lone grove
    His offering brings and cares not at what shrine
    He bends his knee. The gifts alone were mine;
    The rest was Love’s. He took me by the hand,
    And fired the sacrifice, and poured the wine,
    And spoke the words I might not understand.
      I was unwise in all but the dear chance
    Which was my fortune, and the blind desire
    Which led my foolish steps to Love’s abode,
    And youth’s sublime unreason’d prescience
    Which raised an altar and inscribed in fire
    Its dedication _To the Unknown God_.


_820._ _St. Valentines Day_

    To-day, all day, I rode upon the down,
    With hounds and horsemen, a brave company
    On this side in its glory lay the sea,
    On that the Sussex weald, a sea of brown.
    The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone,
    And still we gallop’d on from gorse to gorse:
    And once, when check’d, a thrush sang, and my horse
    Prick’d his quick ears as to a sound unknown.
      I knew the Spring was come. I knew it even
    Better than all by this, that through my chase
    In bush and stone and hill and sea and heaven
    I seem’d to see and follow still your face.
    Your face my quarry was. For it I rode,
    My horse a thing of wings, myself a god.


_821._ _Gibraltar_

    Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm
    Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more
    We ride into still water and the calm
    Of a sweet evening, screen’d by either shore
    Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o’er,
    Our exile is accomplish’d. Once again
    We look on Europe, mistress as of yore
    Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men.
         Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules
    And Goth and Moor bequeath’d us. At this door
    England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill
    Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,
    And at the summons of the rock gun's roar
    To see her red coats marching from the hill!


_822._ _Written at Florence_

    O world, in very truth thou art too young;
    When wilt thou learn to wear the garb of age?
    World, with thy covering of yellow flowers,
    Hast thou forgot what generations sprung
    Out of thy loins and loved thee and are gone?
    Hast thou no place in all their heritage
    Where thou dost only weep, that I may come
    Nor fear the mockery of thy yellow flowers?
      O world, in very truth thou art too young.
    The heroic wealth of passionate emprize
    Built thee fair cities for thy naked plains:
    How hast thou set thy summer growth among
    The broken stones which were their palaces!
    Hast thou forgot the darkness where _he_ lies
    Who made thee beautiful, or have thy bees
    Found out his grave to build their honeycombs?

    O world, in very truth thou art too young:
    They gave thee love who measured out thy skies,
    And, when they found for thee another star,
    Who made a festival and straightway hung
    The jewel on thy neck. O merry world,
    Hast thou forgot the glory of those eyes
    Which first look'd love in thine? Thou hast not furl'd
    One banner of thy bridal car for them.
      O world, in very truth thou art too young.
    There was a voice which sang about thy spring,
    Till winter froze the sweetness of his lips,
    And lo, the worms had hardly left his tongue
    Before thy nightingales were come again.
    O world, what courage hast thou thus to sing?
    Say, has thy merriment no secret pain,
    No sudden weariness that thou art young?


_823._ _The Two Highwaymen_

    I long have had a quarrel set with Time
    Because he robb’d me. Every day of life
    Was wrested from me after bitter strife:
    I never yet could see the sun go down
    But I was angry in my heart, nor hear
    The leaves fall in the wind without a tear
    Over the dying summer. I have known
    No truce with Time nor Time’s accomplice, Death.
      The fair world is the witness of a crime
    Repeated every hour. For life and breath
    Are sweet to all who live; and bitterly
    The voices of these robbers of the heath
    Sound in each ear and chill the passer-by.
    --What have we done to thee, thou monstrous Time?
    What have we done to Death that we must die?




HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON

b. 1840


_824._ _A Garden Song_


    Here in this sequester’d close
    Bloom the hyacinth and rose,
    Here beside the modest stock
    Flaunts the flaring hollyhock;
    Here, without a pang, one sees
    Ranks, conditions, and degrees.

    All the seasons run their race
    In this quiet resting-place;
    Peach and apricot and fig
    Here will ripen and grow big;
    Here is store and overplus,&mdash;
    More had not Alcinoüs!

    Here, in alleys cool and green,
    Far ahead the thrush is seen;
    Here along the southern wall
    Keeps the bee his festival;
    All is quiet else&mdash;afar
    Sounds of toil and turmoil are.

    Here be shadows large and long;
    Here be spaces meet for song;
    Grant, O garden-god, that I,
    Now that none profane is nigh,&mdash;
    Now that mood and moment please,&mdash;
    Find the fair Pierides!


_825._ _Urceus Exit_

_Triolet_

    I intended an Ode,
    And it turn’d to a Sonnet
    It began _à la mode_,
    I intended an Ode;
    But Rose crossed the road
      In her latest new bonnet;
    I intended an Ode;
      And it turn’d to a Sonnet.


_826._ _In After Days_

_Rondeau_

    In after days when grasses high
    O’er-top the stone where I shall lie,
      Though ill or well the world adjust
      My slender claim to honour’d dust,
    I shall not question nor reply.

    I shall not see the morning sky;
      I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;
      I shall be mute, as all men must
            In after days!

    But yet, now living, fain would I
    That some one then should testify,
      Saying--‘He held his pen in trust
      To Art, not serving shame or lust.’
    Will none?--Then let my memory die
          In after days!




HENRY CLARENCE KENDALL

1841-1882


_827._ _Mooni_

      He that is by Mooni now
    Sees the water-sapphires gleaming
    Where the River Spirit, dreaming,
    Sleeps by fall and fountain streaming
      Under lute of leaf and bough!--
    Hears what stamp of Storm with stress is,
    Psalms from unseen wildernesses
    Deep amongst far hill-recesses--
      He that is by Mooni now.

      Yea, for him by Mooni’s marge
    Sings the yellow-hair’d September,
    With the face the gods remember,
    When the ridge is burnt to ember,
      And the dumb sea chains the barge!
    Where the mount like molten brass is,
    Down beneath fern-feather’d passes
    Noonday dew in cool green grasses
      Gleams on him by Mooni’s marge.

      Who that dwells by Mooni yet,
    Feels in flowerful forest arches
    Smiting wings and breath that parches
    Where strong Summer’s path of march is,
      And the suns in thunder set!
    Housed beneath the gracious kirtle
    Of the shadowy water-myrtle--
    Winds may kiss with heat and hurtle,
      He is safe by Mooni yet!

      Days there were when he who sings
    (Dumb so long through passion’s losses)
    Stood where Mooni’s water crosses
    Shining tracks of green-hair’d mosses,
      Like a soul with radiant wings:
    Then the psalm the wind rehearses--
    Then the song the stream disperses--
    Lent a beauty to his verses,
      Who to-night of Mooni sings.

      Ah, the theme--the sad, gray theme!
    Certain days are not above me,
    Certain hearts have ceased to love me,
    Certain fancies fail to move me,
      Like the effluent morning dream.
    Head whereon the white is stealing,
    Heart whose hurts are past all healing,
    Where is now the first, pure feeling?
      Ah, the theme--the sad, gray theme!

           *       *       *       *       *

      Still to be by Mooni cool--
    Where the water-blossoms glister,
    And by gleaming vale and vista
    Sits the English April’s sister,
      Soft and sweet and wonderful!
    Just to rest beneath the burning
    Outer world--its sneers and spurning--
    Ah, my heart--my heart is yearning
      Still to be by Mooni cool!




ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O’SHAUGHNESSY

1844-1881


_828._ _Ode_

    We are the music-makers,
      And we are the dreamers of dreams,
    Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
      And sitting by desolate streams;
    World-losers and world-forsakers,
      On whom the pale moon gleams:
    Yet we are the movers and shakers
      Of the world for ever, it seems.

    With wonderful deathless ditties
    We build up the world’s great cities,
      And out of a fabulous story
      We fashion an empire’s glory:
    One man with a dream, at pleasure,
      Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
    And three with a new song’s measure
      Can trample an empire down.

    We, in the ages lying
      In the buried past of the earth,
    Built Nineveh with our sighing,
      And Babel itself with our mirth;
    And o’erthrew them with prophesying
      To the old of the new world’s worth;
    For each age is a dream that is dying,
      Or one that is coming to birth.


_829._ _Song_

    I made another garden, yea,
      For my new Love:
    I left the dead rose where it lay
      And set the new above.
    Why did my Summer not begin?
      Why did my heart not haste?
    My old Love came and walk’d therein,
      And laid the garden waste.

    She enter’d with her weary smile,
      Just as of old;
    She look’d around a little while
      And shiver’d with the cold:
    Her passing touch was death to all,
      Her passing look a blight;
    She made the white rose-petals fall,
      And turn’d the red rose white.

    Her pale robe clinging to the grass
      Seem’d like a snake
    That bit the grass and ground, alas!
      And a sad trail did make.
    She went up slowly to the gate,
      And then, just as of yore,
    She turn’d back at the last to wait
      And say farewell once more.


_830._ _The Fountain of Tears_

    If you go over desert and mountain,
      Far into the country of Sorrow,
      To-day and to-night and to-morrow,
    And maybe for months and for years;
      You shall come with a heart that is bursting
      For trouble and toiling and thirsting.
    You shall certainly come to the fountain
    At length,--to the Fountain of Tears.

    Very peaceful the place is, and solely
      For piteous lamenting and sighing,
      And those who come living or dying
    Alike from their hopes and their fears;
      Full of cypress-like shadows the place is,
      And statues that cover their faces:
    But out of the gloom springs the holy
    And beautiful Fountain of Tears.

    And it flows and it flows with a motion
      So gentle and lovely and listless,
      And murmurs a tune so resistless
    To him who hath suffer’d and hears--
      You shall surely--without a word spoken,
      Kneel down there and know your heart broken,
    And yield to the long-curb’d emotion
    That day by the Fountain of Tears.

    For it grows and it grows, as though leaping
      Up higher the more one is thinking;
      And ever its tunes go on sinking
    More poignantly into the ears:
      Yea, so blessèd and good seems that fountain,
      Reach’d after dry desert and mountain,
    You shall fall down at length in your weeping
    And bathe your sad face in the tears.

    Then alas! while you lie there a season
      And sob between living and dying,
      And give up the land you were trying
    To find ’mid your hopes and your fears;
    --O the world shall come up and pass o’er you,
      Strong men shall not stay to care for you,
    Nor wonder indeed for what reason
    Your way should seem harder than theirs.

    But perhaps, while you lie, never lifting
      Your cheek from the wet leaves it presses,
      Nor caring to raise your wet tresses
    And look how the cold world appears--
      O perhaps the mere silences round you--
      All things in that place Grief hath found you--
    Yea, e’en to the clouds o’er you drifting,
    May soothe you somewhat through your tears.

    You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes
      Your face, as though some one had kiss’d you;
      Or think at least some one who miss’d you
    Had sent you a thought,--if that cheers;
      Or a bird’s little song, faint and broken,
      May pass for a tender word spoken:
    --Enough, while around you there rushes
    That life-drowning torrent of tears.

    And the tears shall flow faster and faster,
      Brim over and baffle resistance,
      And roll down blear’d roads to each distance
    Of past desolation and years;
      Till they cover the place of each sorrow,
      And leave you no past and no morrow:
    For what man is able to master
    And stem the great Fountain of Tears?

    But the floods and the tears meet and gather;
      The sound of them all grows like thunder:
    --O into what bosom, I wonder,
    Is pour’d the whole sorrow of years?
      For Eternity only seems keeping
      Account of the great human weeping:
    May God, then, the Maker and Father--
    May He find a place for the tears!




JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY

1844-1890


_831._ _A White Rose_

    The red rose whispers of passion,
      And the white rose breathes of love;
    O, the red rose is a falcon,
      And the white rose is a dove.

    But I send you a cream-white rosebud
      With a flush on its petal tips;
    For the love that is purest and sweetest
      Has a kiss of desire on the lips.




ROBERT BRIDGES

b. 1844


_832._ _My Delight and Thy Delight_

    My delight and thy delight
    Walking, like two angels white,
    In the gardens of the night:

    My desire and thy desire
    Twining to a tongue of fire,
    Leaping live, and laughing higher:

    Thro’ the everlasting strife
    In the mystery of life.

    Love, from whom the world begun,
    Hath the secret of the sun.

    Love can tell, and love alone,
    Whence the million stars were strewn,
    Why each atom knows its own,
    How, in spite of woe and death,
    Gay is life, and sweet is breath:

    This he taught us, this we knew,
    Happy in his science true,
    Hand in hand as we stood
    ’Neath the shadows of the wood,
    Heart to heart as we lay
    In the dawning of the day.


_833._ _Spirits_

    Angel spirits of sleep,
    White-robed, with silver hair,
    In your meadows fair,
    Where the willows weep,
    And the sad moonbeam
    On the gliding stream
    Writes her scatter’d dream:

    Angel spirits of sleep,
    Dancing to the weir
    In the hollow roar
    Of its waters deep;
    Know ye how men say
    That ye haunt no more
    Isle and grassy shore
    With your moonlit play;
    That ye dance not here,
    White-robed spirits of sleep,
    All the summer night
    Threading dances light?


_834._ _Nightingales_

      Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
      And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
                Ye learn your song:
    Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
      Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
                Bloom the year long!

      Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
      Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
                A throe of the heart,
    Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
      No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,
                For all our art.

      Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men
      We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,
                As night is withdrawn
    From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
      Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
                Welcome the dawn.


_835._ _A Passer-by_

    Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
      Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,
    That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,
      Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?
      Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest,
    When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,
      Wilt thoù glìde on the blue Pacific, or rest
    In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.

    I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,
      Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air:
    I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,
      And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,
      Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare:
    Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capp’d grandest
      Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair
    Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.


    And yet, O splendid ship, unhail’d and nameless,
      I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine
    That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,
      Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.
    But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,
      As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
    From the proud nostril curve of a prow’s line
      In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.


_836._ _Absence_

    When my love was away,
    Full three days were not sped,
    I caught my fancy astray
    Thinking if she were dead,

    And I alone, alone:
    It seem’d in my misery
    In all the world was none
    Ever so lone as I.

    I wept; but it did not shame
    Nor comfort my heart: away
    I rode as I might, and came
    To my love at close of day.

    The sight of her still’d my fears,
    My fairest-hearted love:
    And yet in her eyes were tears:
    Which when I questioned of,

    ‘O now thou art come,’ she cried,
    ‘’Tis fled: but I thought to-day
    I never could here abide,
    If thou wert longer away.’


_837._ _On a Dead Child_

    Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
      With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
             Though cold and stark and bare,
    The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.

    Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;--alas! no longer
      To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be
             Thy father’s pride:--ah, he
    Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.

    To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,
      Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;
             Startling my fancy fond
    With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty.

    Thy hand clasps, as ’twas wont, my finger, and holds it:
      But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff;
             Yet feels to my hand as if
    ’Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it.

    So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,--
      Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!--
             Propping thy wise, sad head,
    Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing.

    So quiet! doth the change content thee?--Death, whither hath he taken thee?
      To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this?
             The vision of which I miss,
    Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee?


    Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us
      To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark,
             Unwilling, alone we embark,
    And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us.


_838._ _Pater Filio_

    Sense with keenest edge unusèd,
      Yet unsteel’d by scathing fire;
    Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd
      On the ways of dark desire;
    Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
    O’er the wilderness defiling!

    Why such beauty, to be blighted
      By the swarm of foul destruction?
    Why such innocence delighted,
      When sin stalks to thy seduction?
    All the litanies e’er chaunted
    Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

    I have pray’d the sainted Morning
      To unclasp her hands to hold thee;
    From resignful Eve’s adorning
      Stol’n a robe of peace to enfold thee;
    With all charms of man’s contriving
    Arm’d thee for thy lonely striving.

    Me too once unthinking Nature,
    --Whence Love’s timeless mockery took me,--
    Fashion’d so divine a creature,
      Yea, and like a beast forsook me.
    I forgave, but tell the measure
    Of her crime in thee, my treasure.


_839._ _Winter Nightfall_

    The day begins to droop,--
      Its course is done:
    But nothing tells the place
      Of the setting sun.

    The hazy darkness deepens,
      And up the lane
    You may hear, but cannot see,
      The homing wain.

    An engine pants and hums
      In the farm hard by:
    Its lowering smoke is lost
      In the lowering sky.

    The soaking branches drip,
      And all night through
    The dropping will not cease
      In the avenue.

    A tall man there in the house
      Must keep his chair:
    He knows he will never again
      Breathe the spring air:

    His heart is worn with work;
      He is giddy and sick
    If he rise to go as far
      As the nearest rick:

    He thinks of his morn of life,
      His hale, strong years;
    And braves as he may the night
      Of darkness and tears.


_840._ _When Death to Either shall come_

    When Death to either shall come,--
      I pray it be first to me,--
    Be happy as ever at home,
      If so, as I wish, it be.

    Possess thy heart, my own;
      And sing to the child on thy knee,
    Or read to thyself alone
      The songs that I made for thee.




ANDREW LANG

1844-1912


_841._ _The Odyssey_

    As one that for a weary space has lain
      Lull’d by the song of Circe and her wine
      In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
    Where that Ææan isle forgets the main,
    And only the low lutes of love complain,
      And only shadows of wan lovers pine--
      As such an one were glad to know the brine
    Salt on his lips, and the large air again--
    So gladly from the songs of modern speech
      Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
        Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
        And through the music of the languid hours
    They hear like Ocean on a western beach
      The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.




WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

1849-1903


_842._ _Invictus_

    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 unbow’d.

    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.


_843._ _Margaritæ Sorori_

    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, gray 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 accomplish’d and the long day done,
    My wages taken, and in my heart
    Some late lark singing,
    Let me be gather’d to the quiet west,
    The sundown splendid and serene,
    Death.


_844._ _England, My England_

    What have I done for you,
      England, my England?
    What is there I would not do,
      England, my own?
    With your glorious eyes austere,
    As the Lord were walking near,
    Whispering terrible things and dear
      As the Song on your bugles blown,
        England--
    Round the world on your bugles blown?


    Where shall the watchful sun,
      England, my England,
    Match the master-work you’ve done,
      England, my own?
    When shall he rejoice agen
    Such a breed of mighty men
    As come forward, one to ten,
      To the Song on your bugles blown,
        England--
      Down the years on your bugles blown?

    Ever the faith endures,
      England, my England:--
    ‘Take and break us: we are yours,
      England, my own!
    Life is good, and joy runs high
    Between English earth and sky:
    Death is death; but we shall die
      To the Song on your bugles blown,
        England--
      To the stars on your bugles blown!’

    They call you proud and hard,
      England, my England:
    You with worlds to watch and ward,
      England, my own!
    You whose mail’d hand keeps the keys
    Of such teeming destinies,
    You could know nor dread nor ease
      Were the Song on your bugles blown,
        England,
      Round the Pit on your bugles blown!


    Mother of Ships whose might,
      England, my England,
    Is the fierce old Sea’s delight,
      England, my own,
    Chosen daughter of the Lord,
    Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient Sword,
    There’s the menace of the Word
      In the Song on your bugles blown, England--
      Out of heaven on your bugles blown!




EDMUND GOSSE

b. 1849


_845._ _Revelation_

          Into the silver night
            She brought with her pale hand
          The topaz lanthorn-light,
        And darted splendour o’er the land;
            Around her in a band,
    Ringstraked and pied, the great soft moths came flying,
      And flapping with their mad wings, fann’d
    The flickering flame, ascending, falling, dying.

          Behind the thorny pink
            Close wall of blossom’d may,
          I gazed thro’ one green chink
        And saw no more than thousands may,--
            Saw sweetness, tender and gay,--
    Saw full rose lips as rounded as the cherry,
      Saw braided locks more dark than bay,
    And flashing eyes decorous, pure, and merry.


         With food for furry friends
           She pass’d, her lamp and she,
        Till eaves and gable-ends
      Hid all that saffron sheen from me:
            Around my rosy tree
    Once more the silver-starry night was shining,
      With depths of heaven, dewy and free,
    And crystals of a carven moon declining.

         Alas! for him who dwells
           In frigid air of thought,
         When warmer light dispels
      The frozen calm his spirit sought;
          By life too lately taught
    He sees the ecstatic Human from him stealing;
      Reels from the joy experience brought,
    And dares not clutch what Love was half revealing.




ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

1850-1894


_846._ _Romance_

    I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
    Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
    I will make a palace fit for you and me,
    Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

    I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
    Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
    And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
    In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.


    And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
    The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
    That only I remember, that only you admire,
    Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.


_847._ _In the Highlands_

    In the highlands, in the country places,
    Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
        And the young fair maidens
            Quiet eyes;
    Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
    And for ever in the hill-recesses
        _Her_ more lovely music
            Broods and dies--

    O to mount again where erst I haunted;
    Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
        And the low green meadows
            Bright with sward;
    And when even dies, the million-tinted,
    And the night has come, and planets glinted,
        Lo, the valley hollow
            Lamp-bestarr’d!

    O to dream, O to awake and wander
    There, and with delight to take and render,
        Through the trance of silence,
            Quiet breath!
    Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
    Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
        Only winds and rivers,
            Life and death.


_848._ _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 long’d to be;_
    _Home is the sailor, home from sea,_
      _And the hunter home from the hill._




T. W. ROLLESTON

b. 1857


_849._ _The Dead at Clonmacnois_

FROM THE IRISH OF ANGUS O’GILLAN

    In a quiet water’d land, a land of roses,
          Stands Saint Kieran’s city fair;
    And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations
          Slumber there.

    There beneath the dewy hillside sleep the noblest
          Of the clan of Conn,
    Each below his stone with name in branching Ogham
          And the sacred knot thereon.

    There they laid to rest the seven Kings of Tara,
          There the sons of Cairbrè sleep--
    Battle-banners of the Gael that in Kieran’s plain of crosses
          Now their final hosting keep.

    And in Clonmacnois they laid the men of Teffia,
          And right many a lord of Breagh;
    Deep the sod above Clan Creidè and Clan Conaill,
          Kind in hall and fierce in fray.


    Many and many a son of Conn the Hundred-Fighter
          In the red earth lies at rest;
    Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers,
          Many a swan-white breast.




JOHN DAVIDSON

1857-1909


_850._ _Song_

    The boat is chafing at our long delay,
      And we must leave too soon
    The spicy sea-pinks and the inborne spray,
      The tawny sands, the moon.

    Keep us, O Thetis, in our western flight!
      Watch from thy pearly throne
    Our vessel, plunging deeper into night
      To reach a land unknown.


_851._ _The Last Rose_

    ‘O which is the last rose?’
    A blossom of no name.
    At midnight the snow came;
    At daybreak a vast rose,
    In darkness unfurl’d,
    O’er-petall’d the world.

    Its odourless pallor
    Blossom’d forlorn,
    Till radiant valour
    Established the morn--
    Till the night
    Was undone
    In her fight
    With the sun.

    The brave orb in state rose,
    And crimson he shone first;
    While from the high vine
    Of heaven the dawn burst,
    Staining the great rose
    From sky-line to sky-line.

    The red rose of morn
    A white rose at noon turn’d;
    But at sunset reborn
    All red again soon burn’d.
    Then the pale rose of noonday
    Rebloom’d in the night,
    And spectrally white
      In the light
    Of the moon lay.

    But the vast rose
      Was scentless,
    And this is the reason:
    When the blast rose
      Relentless,
    And brought in due season
    The snow rose, the last rose
    Congeal’d in its breath,
    Then came with it treason;
    The traitor was Death.

    In lee-valleys crowded,
    The sheep and the birds
    Were frozen and shrouded
    In flights and in herds.
    In highways
    And byways
    The young and the old
    Were tortured and madden’d
    And kill’d by the cold.
    But many were gladden’d
    By the beautiful last rose,
    The blossom of no name
    That came when the snow came,
    In darkness unfurl’d--
    The wonderful vast rose
    That fill’d all the world.




WILLIAM WATSON

b. 1858


_852._ _Song_

    April, April,
    Laugh thy girlish laughter;
    Then, the moment after,
    Weep thy girlish tears!
    April, that mine ears
    Like a lover greetest,
    If I tell thee, sweetest,
    All my hopes and fears,
    April, April,
    Laugh thy golden laughter,
    But, the moment after,
    Weep thy golden tears!


_853._ _Ode in May_

    Let me go forth, and share
      The overflowing Sun
      With one wise friend, or one
    Better than wise, being fair,
    Where the pewit wheels and dips
      On heights of bracken and ling,
    And Earth, unto her leaflet tips,
      Tingles with the Spring.

    What is so sweet and dear
      As a prosperous morn in May,
      The confident prime of the day,
    And the dauntless youth of the year,
    When nothing that asks for bliss,
      Asking aright, is denied,
    And half of the world a bridegroom is,
      And half of the world a bride?

    The Song of Mingling flows,
      Grave, ceremonial, pure,
      As once, from lips that endure,
    The cosmic descant rose,
    When the temporal lord of life,
      Going his golden way,
    Had taken a wondrous maid to wife
      That long had said him nay.

    For of old the Sun, our sire,
      Came wooing the mother of men,
      Earth, that was virginal then,
    Vestal fire to his fire.
    Silent her bosom and coy,
      But the strong god sued and press’d;
    And born of their starry nuptial joy
      Are all that drink of her breast.

    And the triumph of him that begot,
      And the travail of her that bore,
      Behold they are evermore
    As warp and weft in our lot.
    We are children of splendour and flame,
      Of shuddering, also, and tears.
    Magnificent out of the dust we came,
      And abject from the Spheres.

    O bright irresistible lord!
      We are fruit of Earth’s womb, each one,
      And fruit of thy loins, O Sun,
    Whence first was the seed outpour’d.
    To thee as our Father we bow,
      Forbidden thy Father to see,
    Who is older and greater than thou, as thou
      Art greater and older than we.

    Thou art but as a word of his speech;
      Thou art but as a wave of his hand;
      Thou art brief as a glitter of sand
    ’Twixt tide and tide on his beach;
    Thou art less than a spark of his fire,
      Or a moment’s mood of his soul:
    Thou art lost in the notes on the lips of his choir
      That chant the chant of the Whole.


_854._ _The Great Misgiving_

    ‘Not ours,’ say some, ‘the thought of death to dread;
      Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hell:
    Life is a feast, and we have banqueted--
      Shall not the worms as well?


    ‘The after-silence, when the feast is o’er,
      And void the places where the minstrels stood,
    Differs in nought from what hath been before,
      And is nor ill nor good.’

    Ah, but the Apparition--the dumb sign--
      The beckoning finger bidding me forgo
    The fellowship, the converse, and the wine,
      The songs, the festal glow!

    And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit,
      And while the purple joy is pass’d about,
    Whether ’tis ampler day divinelier lit
      Or homeless night without;

    And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see
      New prospects, or fall sheer--a blinded thing!
    _There_ is, O grave, thy hourly victory,
      And there, O death, thy sting.




HENRY CHARLES BEECHING

1859-1919


_855._ _Prayers_

    God who created me
      Nimble and light of limb,
    In three elements free,
      To run, to ride, to swim:
    Not when the sense is dim,
      But now from the heart of joy,
    I would remember Him:
      Take the thanks of a boy.


    Jesu, King and Lord,
      Whose are my foes to fight,
    Gird me with Thy sword
      Swift and sharp and bright.
    Thee would I serve if I might;
      And conquer if I can,
    From day-dawn till night,
      Take the strength of a man.

    Spirit of Love and Truth,
      Breathing in grosser clay,
    The light and flame of youth,
      Delight of men in the fray,
    Wisdom in strength’s decay;
      From pain, strife, wrong to be free,
    This best gift I pray,
      Take my spirit to Thee.


_856._ _Going down Hill on a Bicycle_

A BOY’S SONG

    With lifted feet, hands still,
    I am poised, and down the hill
    Dart, with heedful mind;
    The air goes by in a wind.

    Swifter and yet more swift,
    Till the heart with a mighty lift
    Makes the lungs laugh, the throat cry:--
    ‘O bird, see; see, bird, I fly.

    ‘Is this, is this your joy?
    O bird, then I, though a boy,
    For a golden moment share
    Your feathery life in air!’


    Say, heart, is there aught like this
    In a world that is full of bliss?
    ’Tis more than skating, bound
    Steel-shod to the level ground.

    Speed slackens now, I float
    Awhile in my airy boat;
    Till, when the wheels scarce crawl,
    My feet to the treadles fall.

    Alas, that the longest hill
    Must end in a vale; but still,
    Who climbs with toil, wheresoe’er,
    Shall find wings waiting there.




BLISS CARMAN

b. 1861


_857._ _Why_

    For a name unknown,
    Whose fame unblown
    Sleeps in the hills
      For ever and aye;

    For her who hears
    The stir of the years
    Go by on the wind
      By night and day;

    And heeds no thing
    Of the needs of spring,
    Of autumn’s wonder
      Or winter’s chill;
    For one who sees
    The great sun freeze,
    As he wanders a-cold
      From hill to hill;

    And all her heart
    Is a woven part
    Of the flurry and drift
      Of whirling snow;

    For the sake of two
    Sad eyes and true,
    And the old, old love
      So long ago.




DOUGLAS HYDE

b. 1861


_858._ _My Grief on the Sea_

FROM THE IRISH

    My grief on the sea,
      How the waves of it roll!
    For they heave between me
      And the love of my soul!

    Abandon’d, forsaken,
      To grief and to care,
    Will the sea ever waken
      Relief from despair?

    My grief and my trouble!
      Would he and I were,
    In the province of Leinster,
      Or County of Clare!


    Were I and my darling--
      O heart-bitter wound!--
    On board of the ship
      For America bound.

    On a green bed of rushes
      All last night I lay,
    And I flung it abroad
      With the heat of the day.

    And my Love came behind me,
      He came from the South;
    His breast to my bosom,
      His mouth to my mouth.




ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON

b. 1862


_859._ _The Phœnix_

    BY feathers green, across Casbeen
      The pilgrims track the Phœnix flown,
    By gems he strew’d in waste and wood,
      And jewell’d plumes at random thrown.

    Till wandering far, by moon and star,
      They stand beside the fruitful pyre,
    Where breaking bright with sanguine light
      The impulsive bird forgets his sire.

    Those ashes shine like ruby wine,
      Like bag of Tyrian murex spilt,
    The claw, the jowl of the flying fowl
      Are with the glorious anguish gilt.


    So rare the light, so rich the sight,
      Those pilgrim men, on profit bent,
    Drop hands and eyes and merchandise,
      And are with gazing most content.




HENRY NEWBOLT

b. 1862


_860._ _He fell among Thieves_

    ‘Ye have robb’d,’ said he, ‘ye have slaughtered and made an end,
      Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
    What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?’
      ‘Blood for our blood,’ they said.

    He laugh’d: ‘If one may settle the score for five,
      I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
    I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive.’
      ‘You shall die at dawn,’ said they.

    He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
      He climb’d alone to the Eastward edge of the trees:
    All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
      He brooded, clasping his knees.

    He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
      The ravine where the Yassîn river sullenly flows;
    He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
      Or the far Afghan snows.

    He saw the April noon on his books aglow,
      The wistaria trailing in at the window wide;
    He heard his father’s voice from the terrace below
      Calling him down to ride.


    He saw the gray little church across the park,
      The mounds that hid the loved and honour’d dead;
    The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark,
      The brasses black and red.

    He saw the School Close, sunny and green,
      The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,
    The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between,
      His own name over all.

    He saw the dark wainscot and timber’d roof,
      The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;
    The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,
      The Dons on the daïs serene.

    He watch’d the liner’s stem ploughing the foam,
      He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw;
    He heard the passengers’ voices talking of home,
      He saw the flag she flew.

    And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet,
      And strode to his ruin’d camp below the wood;
    He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet:
      His murderers round him stood.

    Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast,
      The blood-red snow-peaks chill’d to a dazzling white;
    He turn’d, and saw the golden circle at last,
      Cut by the Eastern height.

    ‘O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun,
      I have lived, I praise and adore Thee.’ A sword swept.
    Over the pass the voices one by one
      Faded, and the hill slept.




GILBERT PARKER

b. 1862


_861._ _Reunited_

    When you and I have play’d the little hour,
      Have seen the tall subaltern Life to Death
      Yield up his sword; and, smiling, draw the breath,
    The first long breath of freedom; when the flower
    Of Recompense hath flutter’d to our feet,
      As to an actor’s; and, the curtain down,
      We turn to face each other all alone--
    Alone, we two, who never yet did meet,
    Alone, and absolute, and free: O then,
      O then, most dear, how shall be told the tale?
    Clasp’d hands, press’d lips, and so clasp’d hands again;
      No words. But as the proud wind fills the sail,
        My love to yours shall reach, then one deep moan
        Of joy, and then our infinite Alone.




WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

b. 1865


_862._ _Where My Books go_


    All the words that I utter,
      And all the words that I write,
    Must spread out their wings untiring,
      And never rest in their flight,
    Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
      And sing to you in the night,
    Beyond where the waters are moving,
      Storm-darken’d or starry bright.


_863._ _When You are Old_

    When you are old and gray and full of sleep
      And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
      And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
    Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

    How many loved your moments of glad grace,
      And loved your beauty with love false or true;
      But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
    And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

    And bending down beside the glowing bars,
      Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
      And paced upon the mountains overhead,
    And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


_864._ _The Lake Isle of Innisfree_

    I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
    And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
    Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
      And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

    And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
    Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
    There midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
      And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day
    I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
    While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
      I hear it in the deep heart’s core.




RUDYARD KIPLING

b. 1865


_865._ _A Dedication_

    My new-cut ashlar takes the light
      Where crimson-blank the windows flare;
    By my own work, before the night,
      Great Overseer, I make my prayer.

    If there be good in that I wrought,
      Thy hand compell’d it, Master, Thine;
    Where I have fail’d to meet Thy thought
      I know, through Thee, the blame is mine.

    One instant’s toil to Thee denied
      Stands all Eternity’s offence;
    Of that I did with Thee to guide
      To Thee, through Thee, be excellence.

    Who, lest all thought of Eden fade,
      Bring’st Eden to the craftsman’s brain,
    Godlike to muse o’er his own trade
      And manlike stand with God again.

    The depth and dream of my desire,
      The bitter paths wherein I stray,
    Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire,
      Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay.

    One stone the more swings to her place
      In that dread Temple of Thy worth--
    It is enough that through Thy grace
      I saw naught common on Thy earth.


    Take not that vision from my ken;
      O, whatsoe’er may spoil or speed,
    Help me to need no aid from men,
      That I may help such men as need!


_866._ _L’Envoi_

    There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield
      And the ricks stand gray to the sun,
    Singing:--‘Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover
      And your English summer’s done.’
        You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind
        And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
        You have heard the song--how long! how long!
        Pull out on the trail again!

    Ha’ done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass,
    We’ve seen the seasons through,
    And it’s time to turn on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.

    It’s North you may run to the rime-ring’d sun,
      Or South to the blind Horn’s hate;
    Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay,
      Or West to the Golden Gate;
    Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,
    And the wildest tales are true,
    And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    And life runs large on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.


    The days are sick and cold, and the skies are gray and old,
      And the twice-breathed airs blow damp;
    And I’d sell my tired soul for the bucking beam-sea roll
      Of a black Bilbao tramp;
    With her load-line over her hatch, dear lass,
    And a drunken Dago crew,
    And her nose held down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    From Cadiz Bar on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.

    There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,
      Or the way of a man with a maid;
    But the sweetest way to me is a ship’s upon the sea
      In the heel of the North-East Trade.
    Can you hear the crash on her bows, dear lass,
    And the drum of the racing screw,
    As she ships it green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    As she lifts and ’scends on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new?

    See the shaking funnels roar, with the Peter at the fore,
      And the fenders grind and heave,
    And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate,
      And the fall-rope whines through the sheave;
    It’s ‘Gang-plank up and in,’ dear lass,
    It’s ‘Hawsers warp her through!’
    And it’s ‘All clear aft’ on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    We’re backing down on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.


    O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied,
      And the sirens hoot their dread!
    When foot by foot we creep o’er the hueless viewless deep
      To the sob of the questing lead!
    It’s down by the Lower Hope, dear lass,
    With the Gunfleet Sands in view,
    Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.

    O the blazing tropic night, when the wake’s a welt of light
      That holds the hot sky tame,
    And the steady fore-foot snores through the planet-powder’d floors
      Where the scared whale flukes in flame!
    Her plates are scarr’d by the sun, dear lass,
    And her ropes are taut with the dew,
    For we’re booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    We’re sagging south on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.

    Then home, get her home, where the drunken rollers comb,
      And the shouting seas drive by,
    And the engines stamp and ring, and the wet bows reel and swing,
      And the Southern Cross rides high!
    Yes, the old lost stars wheel back, dear lass,
    That blaze in the velvet blue.
    They’re all old friends on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    They’re God’s own guides on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.


    Fly forward, O my heart, from the Foreland to the Start--
      We’re steaming all too slow,
    And it’s twenty thousand mile to our little lazy isle
      Where the trumpet-orchids blow!
    You have heard the call of the off-shore wind
    And the voice of the deep-sea rain;
    You have heard the song--how long! how long!
      Pull out on the trail again!

    The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass,
    And the deuce knows what we may do--
    But we’re back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
    We’re down, hull down on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.


_867._ _Recessional_

_June 22, 1897_

    God of our fathers, known of old--
      Lord of our far-flung battle-line--
    Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
      Dominion over palm and pine--
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget, lest we forget!

    The tumult and the shouting dies--
      The captains and the kings depart--
    Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
      An humble and a contrite heart.
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget, lest we forget!


    Far-call’d our navies melt away--
      On dune and headland sinks the fire--
    Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
      Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
    Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
    Lest we forget, lest we forget!

    If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
      Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
    Such boasting as the Gentiles use
      Or lesser breeds without the Law--
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget, lest we forget!

    For heathen heart that puts her trust
      In reeking tube and iron shard--
    All valiant dust that builds on dust,
      And guarding calls not Thee to guard--
    For frantic boast and foolish word,
    Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!




RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

b. 1866


_868._ _Song_

    She’s somewhere in the sunlight strong,
      Her tears are in the falling rain,
    She calls me in the wind’s soft song,
      And with the flowers she comes again.

    Yon bird is but her messenger,
      The moon is but her silver car;
    Yea! sun and moon are sent by her,
      And every wistful waiting star.


_869._ _The Second Crucifixion_

    Loud mockers in the roaring street
      Say Christ is crucified again:
    Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet,
      Twice broken His great heart in vain.

    I hear, and to myself I smile,
    For Christ talks with me all the while.

    No angel now to roll the stone
      From off His unawaking sleep,
    In vain shall Mary watch alone,
      In vain the soldiers vigil keep.

    Yet while they deem my Lord is dead
    My eyes are on His shining head.

    Ah! never more shall Mary hear
      That voice exceeding sweet and low
    Within the garden calling clear:
      Her Lord is gone, and she must go.

    Yet all the while my Lord I meet
    In every London lane and street.

    Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain,
      And Bartimæus still go blind;
    The healing hem shall ne’er again
      Be touch’d by suffering humankind.

    Yet all the while I see them rest,
    The poor and outcast, on His breast.


    No more unto the stubborn heart
      With gentle knocking shall He plead,
    No more the mystic pity start,
      For Christ twice dead is dead indeed.

    So in the street I hear men say,
    Yet Christ is with me all the day.




LAURENCE BINYON

b. 1869


_870._ _Invocation to Youth_

    Come then, as ever, like the wind at morning!
      Joyous, O Youth, in the agèd world renew
    Freshness to feel the eternities around it,
      Rain, stars and clouds, light and the sacred dew.
          The strong sun shines above thee:
          That strength, that radiance bring!
          If Winter come to Winter,
          When shall men hope for Spring?


_871._ _O World, be Nobler_

    O World, be nobler, for her sake!
      If she but knew thee what thou art,
    What wrongs are borne, what deeds are done
    In thee, beneath thy daily sun,
      Know’st thou not that her tender heart
    For pain and very shame would break?
    O World, be nobler, for her sake!




GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL (‘A. E.’)

b. 1853


_872._ _By the Margin of the Great Deep_

    When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
    All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam,
    With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;
        I am one with the twilight’s dream.

    When the trees and skies and fields are one in dusky mood,
    Every heart of man is rapt within the mother’s breast:
    Full of peace and sleep and dreams in the vasty quietude,
        I am one with their hearts at rest.

    From our immemorial joys of hearth and home and love
    Stray’d away along the margin of the unknown tide,
    All its reach of soundless calm can thrill me far above
        Word or touch from the lips beside.

    Aye, and deep and deep and deeper let me drink and draw
    From the olden fountain more than light or peace or dream,
    Such primæval being as o’erfills the heart with awe,
        Growing one with its silent stream.


_873._ _The Great Breath_

    Its edges foam’d with amethyst and rose,
    Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
    There where the ether like a diamond glows,
            Its petals fade away.

    A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
    Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
    The great deep thrills--for through it everywhere
            The breath of Beauty blows.


    I saw how all the trembling ages past,
    Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath,
    Near’d to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
            And knows herself in death.




T. STURGE MOORE

b. 1870


_874._ _A Duet_

    ‘Flowers nodding gaily, scent in air,
    Flowers posied, flowers for the hair,
    Sleepy flowers, flowers bold to stare----’
              ‘O pick me some!’

    ‘Shells with lip, or tooth, or bleeding gum,
    Tell-tale shells, and shells that whisper _Come_,
    Shells that stammer, blush, and yet are dumb----’
              ‘O let me hear.’

    ‘Eyes so black they draw one trembling near,
    Brown eyes, caverns flooded with a tear,
    Cloudless eyes, blue eyes so windy clear----’
              ‘O look at me!’

    ‘Kisses sadly blown across the sea,
    Darkling kisses, kisses fair and free,
    Bob-a-cherry kisses ’neath a tree----’
              ‘O give me one!’

    Thus sang a king and queen in Babylon.




FRANCIS THOMPSON

1859-1907


_875._ _The Poppy_

    Summer set lip to earth’s bosom bare,
    And left the flush’d print in a poppy there;
    Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,
    And the fanning wind puff’d it to flapping flame.

    With burnt mouth red like a lion’s it drank
    The blood of the sun as he slaughter’d sank,
    And dipp’d its cup in the purpurate shine
    When the eastern conduits ran with wine.

    Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss,
    And hot as a swinkèd gipsy is,
    And drowsed in sleepy savageries,
    With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss.

    A child and man paced side by side,
    Treading the skirts of eventide;
    But between the clasp of his hand and hers
    Lay, felt not, twenty wither’d years.

    She turn’d, with the rout of her dusk South hair,
    And saw the sleeping gipsy there;
    And snatch’d and snapp’d it in swift child’s whim,
    With--‘Keep it, long as you live!’--to him.

    And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres,
    Trembled up from a bath of tears;
    And joy, like a mew sea-rock’d apart,
    Toss’d on the wave of his troubled heart.


    For _he_ saw what she did not see,
    That--as kindled by its own fervency--
    The verge shrivell’d inward smoulderingly:

    And suddenly ’twixt his hand and hers
    He knew the twenty withered years--
    No flower, but twenty shrivelled years.

    ‘Was never such thing until this hour,’
    Low to his heart he said; ‘the flower
    Of sleep brings wakening to me,
    And of oblivion memory.’

    ‘Was never this thing to me,’ he said,
    ‘Though with bruisèd poppies my feet are red!’
    And again to his own heart very low:
    ‘O child! I love, for I love and know;

    ‘But you, who love nor know at all
    The diverse chambers in Love’s guest-hall,
    Where some rise early, few sit long:
    In how differing accents hear the throng
    His great Pentecostal tongue;

    ‘Who know not love from amity,
    Nor my reported self from me;
    A fair fit gift is this, meseems,
    You give--this withering flower of dreams.

    ‘O frankly fickle, and fickly true,
    Do you know what the days will do to you?
    To your Love and you what the days will do,
    O frankly fickle, and fickly true?


    ‘You have loved me, Fair, three lives--or days:
    ’Twill pass with the passing of my face.
    But where _I_ go, your face goes too,
    To watch lest I play false to you.

    ‘I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,
    Knowing well when certain years are over
    You vanish from me to another;
    Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

    ‘So, frankly fickle, and fickly true!
    For my brief life-while I take from you
    This token, fair and fit, meseems,
    For me--this withering flower of dreams.’

           *       *       *       *       *

    The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,
    Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:
    The goodly grain and the sun-flush’d sleeper
    The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

    I hang ’mid men my needless head,
    And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:
    The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper
    Time shall reap, but after the reaper
    The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper!

    Love! love! your flower of wither’d dream
    In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem,
    Shelter’d and shut in a nook of rhyme,
    From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

    Love! _I_ fall into the claws of Time:
    But lasts within a leavèd rhyme
    All that the world of me esteems--
    My wither’d dreams, my wither’d dreams.




HENRY CUST

1861-1917


_876._ _Non Nobis_

    Not unto us, O Lord,
    Not unto us the rapture of the day,
    The peace of night, or love’s divine surprise,
    High heart, high speech, high deeds ’mid honouring eyes;
    For at Thy word
    All these are taken away.

    Not unto us, O Lord:
    To us thou givest the scorn, the scourge, the scar,
    The ache of life, the loneliness of death,
    The insufferable sufficiency of breath;
    And with Thy sword
    Thou piercest very far.

    Not unto us, O Lord:
    Nay, Lord, but unto her be all things given--
    My light and life and earth and sky be blasted--
    But let not all that wealth of loss be wasted:
    Let Hell afford
    The pavement of her Heaven!




KATHARINE TYNAN HINKSON

b. 1861


_877._ _Sheep and Lambs_

    All in the April morning,
         April airs were abroad;
    The sheep with their little lambs
         Pass’d me by on the road.


    The sheep with their little lambs
      Pass’d me by on the road;
    All in an April evening
      I thought on the Lamb of God.

    The lambs were weary, and crying
      With a weak human cry,
    I thought on the Lamb of God
      Going meekly to die.

    Up in the blue, blue mountains
      Dewy pastures are sweet:
    Rest for the little bodies,
      Rest for the little feet.

    Rest for the Lamb of God
      Up on the hill-top green,
    Only a cross of shame
      Two stark crosses between.

    All in the April evening,
      April airs were abroad;
    I saw the sheep with their lambs,
      And thought on the Lamb of God.




FRANCES BANNERMAN


_878._ _An Upper Chamber_

    I came into the City and none knew me;
      None came forth, none shouted ‘He is here!
    Not a hand with laurel would bestrew me,
      All the way by which I drew anear--
      Night my banner, and my herald Fear.


    But I knew where one so long had waited
      In the low room at the stairway’s height,
    Trembling lest my foot should be belated,
      Singing, sighing for the long hours’ flight
      Towards the moment of our dear delight.

    I came into the City when you hail’d me
      Saviour, and again your chosen Lord:--
    Not one guessing what it was that fail’d me,
      While along the way as they adored
      Thousands, thousands, shouted in accord.

    But through all the joy I knew--I only--
      How the hostel of my heart lay bare and cold,
    Silent of its music, and how lonely!
      Never, though you crown me with your gold,
      Shall I find that little chamber as of old!




ALICE MEYNELL

b. 1850


_879._ _Renouncement_

    I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
      I shun the love that lurks in all delight--
      The love of thee--and in the blue heaven’s height,
    And in the dearest passage of a song.
    Oh, just beyond the sweetest thoughts that throng
      This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright;
      But it must never, never come in sight;
    I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
    But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
      When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
    And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
    Must doff my will as raiment laid away,--
      With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
    I run, I run, I am gather’d to thy heart.


_880._ _The Lady of the Lambs_

    She walks--the lady of my delight--
      A shepherdess of sheep.
    Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
      She guards them from the steep.
    She feeds them on the fragrant height
      And folds them in for sleep.

    She roams maternal hills and bright,
      Dark valleys safe and deep.
    Her dreams are innocent at night;
      The chastest stars may peep.
    She walks--the lady of my delight--
      A shepherdess of sheep.

    She holds her little thoughts in sight,
      Though gay they run and leap.
    She is so circumspect and right;
      She has her soul to keep.
    She walks--the lady of my delight--
      A shepherdess of sheep.




DORA SIGERSON

d. 1918


_881._ _Ireland_

    ’Twas the dream of a God,
      And the mould of His hand,
    That you shook ’neath His stroke,
    That you trembled and broke
      To this beautiful land.

    Here He loosed from His hold
      A brown tumult of wings,
    Till the wind on the sea
    Bore the strange melody
      Of an island that sings.

    He made you all fair,
      You in purple and gold,
    You in silver and green,
    Till no eye that has seen
      Without love can behold.

    I have left you behind
      In the path of the past,
    With the white breath of flowers,
    With the best of God’s hours,
      I have left you at last.




MARGARET L. WOODS

b. 1856


_882._ _Genius Loci_

    Peace, Shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on?
      Since long ago grace-giving Phœbus died,
      And all the train that loved the stream-bright side
    Of the poetic mount with him are gone
    Beyond the shores of Styx and Acheron,
      In unexplorèd realms of night to hide.
      The clouds that strew their shadows far and wide
    Are all of Heaven that visits Helicon.
    Yet here, where never muse or god did haunt,
      Still may some nameless power of Nature stray,
    Pleased with the reedy stream’s continual chant
      And purple pomp of these broad fields in May.
    The shepherds meet him where he herds the kine,
    And careless pass him by whose is the gift divine.




R. D. BLACKMORE

1825-1900


_883._ _Dominus Illuminatio Mea_

    In the hour of death, after this life’s whim,
    When the heart beats low, and the eyes grow dim,
    And pain has exhausted every limb--
      The lover of the Lord shall trust in Him.

    When the will has forgotten the lifelong aim,
    And the mind can only disgrace its fame,
    And a man is uncertain of his own name--
      The power of the Lord shall fill this frame.

    When the last sigh is heaved, and the last tear shed,
    And the coffin is waiting beside the bed,
    And the widow and child forsake the dead--
      The angel of the Lord shall lift this head.

    For even the purest delight may pall,
    And power must fail, and the pride must fall,
    And the love of the dearest friends grow small--
      But the glory of the Lord is all in all.

[Illustration]




INDEX OF AUTHORS AND FIRST LINES INDEX OF AUTHORS

_The references are to the numbers of the poems_


Addison, Joseph, 433.

‘A.E.,’ 872, 873.

Ainslie, Hew, 619.

Akenside, Mark, 461-463.

Alford, Henry, 711.

Allingham, William, 769.

Anonymous, 1-7, 22-29, 50-72, 367-392.

Arnold, Matthew, 747-754.

Ashe, Thomas, 805, 806.

Ayton, Sir Robert, 182, 183.


Baillie, Joanna, 510.

Baillie, Lady Grisel, 430.

Bannerman, Frances, 878.

Barbauld, Anna Lætitia, 474.

Barbour, John, 9.

Barnefield, Richard, 203.

Barnes, William, 658, 659.

Beattie, James, 472.

Beaumont, Francis, 234.

Beaumont, Sir John, 223.

Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, 666-668.

Beeching, Henry Charles, 855, 856.

Behn, Aphra, 411, 412.

Benson, Arthur Christopher, 859.

Binyon, Laurence, 870, 871.

Blackmore, R. D., 883.

Blake, William, 483-492.

Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, 816-823.

Bowles, William Lisle, 509.

Boyd, Mark Alexander, 114.

Breton, Nicholas, 73, 74 (?).

Bridges, Robert, 832-840.

Brome, Alexander, 354.

Brooke, Lord, 96.

Broome, William, 446, 447

Brontë, Emily, 735-738.

Brown, Thomas  Edward, 790-793.

Browne, William, of Tavistock, 240-246.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 678-687.

Browning, Robert, 715-730.

Buckinghamshire, Duke of, 417, 418.

Bunyan, John, 366.

Burns, Robert, 493-506.

Byron, Lord, 597-601.


Callanan, Jeremiah Joseph, 638.

Campbell, Thomas, 580, 581.

Campion, Thomas, 168-176.

Carew, Thomas, 289-295.

Carey, Henry, 444, 445.

Carman, Bliss, 857.

Cartwright, William, 330-333.

Chapman, George, 107.

Chatterton, Thomas, 479.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 10-12.

Clare, John, 621.

Clough, Arthur Hugh, 741.

Coleridge, Hartley, 643-646.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 549-555.

Coleridge, Sara, 661, 662.

Collins, William, 457-460.

Congreve, William, 431, 432.

Constable, Henry, 110.

Cory, William (Johnson), 758-9.

Cotton, Charles, 396.

Cowley, Abraham, 349-353.

Cowper, William, 470, 471.

Crabbe, George, 480-482.

Crashaw, Richard, 336-342.

Cunningham, Allan, 589-591.

Cunninghame-Graham, Robert, of Gartmore, 469.

Cust, Henry, 876.

Cutts, Lord, 421.


Daniel, Samuel, 111-113.

Darley, George, 640-642.

Davenant, Sir William, 301-303.

Davidson, John, 850, 851.

Davies, Sir John, 181.

Davison, F. _or_ W. (?), 64.

Dekker, Thomas, 204.

De Vere, Aubrey, 732, 733.

De Vere, Sir Aubrey, 602.

Dobell, Sydney, 765-768.

Dobson, Henry Austin, 824-826.

Donne, John, 195-202.

Dorset, Earl of, 408.

Drayton, Michael, 116-120.

Drummond, William, of Hawthornden, 224-232.

Dryden, John, 398-402.

Dufferin, Lady, 691.

Dunbar, William, 18-21.

D’Urfey, Thomas, 395.


Edwardes, Richard, 46.

Elliott, Ebenezer, 587, 588.

Elliot, Jane, 466.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 669-672.

Etherege, Sir George, 404, 405.


Fanshawe, Sir Richard, 329.

Ferguson, Sir Samuel, 712-714.

FitzGerald, Edward, 697, 698.

Flatman, Thomas, 407.

Fletcher, Giles, 233.

Fletcher, John, 141-143 (?), 207-217.

Fletcher, Phineas, 222.

Ford, John, 235.

Fox, George, 734.


Gascoigne, George, 47.

Gay, John, 439.

Goldsmith, Oliver, 467, 468.

Gosse, Edmund, 845.

Gray, Thomas, 453-456.

Greene, Robert, 103-105.

Greville, Fanny, 475.

Griffin, Gerald, 663.

Grimald, Nicholas, 42.


Habington, William, 297, 298.

Harte, Bret, 813.

Hawes, Stephen, 32, 33.

Hawker, Robert Stephen, 674, 675.

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea, 622.

Henley, William Ernest, 842-844.

Henryson, Robert, 16, 17.

Herbert, George, 281-286.

Herrick, Robert, 247-275.

Heywood, John (?), 53.

Heywood, Thomas, 205, 206.

Hinkson, Katharine Tynan, 877.

Hoccleve, Thomas, 13.

Hood, Thomas, 647-654.

Hogg, James, 513, 514.

Horne, Richard Henry, 673.

Houghton, Lord, 710.

Howells, William Dean, 82.

Hume, Alexander, 106.

Hunt, Leigh, 592.

Hyde, Douglas, 858.


Jago, Richard, 452.

James I (King of Scotland), 15.

Johnson, Samuel, 450, 451.

Jones, Ebenezer, 745.

Jones, Sir William, 478.

Jonson, Ben, 184-194.

Jordan, Thomas, 335.


Keats, John, 623-637.

Keble, John, 620.

Kendall, Henry Clarence, 827.

King, Henry (Bishop of Chichester), 278-280.

Kingsley, Charles, 739, 740.

Kipling, Rudyard, 865-867.


Lamb, Charles, 577-579.

Lamb, Mary, 511.

Landor, Walter Savage, 557-576.

Lang, Andrew, 841.

Le Gallienne, Richard, 868, 869.

Lindsay, Lady Anne, 477.

Locker-Lampson, Frederick, 746.

Lodge, Thomas, 97-100.

Logan, John, 476.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 689.

Lovelace, Richard, 343-348.

Lydgate, John, 14.

Lyly, John, 85, 86.

Lyttelton, Lord, 449.

Lytton, Earl of, 794, 795.


Macaulay, Lord, 657.

MacDonald, George, 770.

Mahony, Francis, 677.

Mangan, James Clarence, 664, 665.

Mannyng, Robert, of Brunne, 8.

Marlowe, Christopher, 121.

Marvell, Andrew, 355-361.

Mayne, Jasper, 296.

Melcombe, Lord, 443.

Meredith, George, 772-776.

Meynell, Alice, 879, 880.

Milton, John, 307-324.

Montgomerie, Alexander, 48.

Montrose, Marquis of, 334.

Moore, Thomas, 582-585.

Moore, T. Sturge, 874.

Morris, William, 800-802.

Munday, Anthony, 87.


Nairne, Carolina Lady, 512.

Nashe, Thomas, 166, 167.

Newbolt, Henry, 860.

Noel, Roden Berkeley Wriothesley, 803, 804.

Norton, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah, 692.


Oldham, John, 420.

Oldys, William, 438.

O’Reilly, John Boyle, 831.

O’Shaughnessy, Arthur William Edgar, 828-830.

Otway, Thomas, 419.


Pagan, Isobel, 473.

Parker, Gilbert, 861.

Parnell, Thomas, 436.

Patmore, Coventry, 760-764.

Peacock, Thomas Love, 593-595.

Peele, George, 101, 102.

Philips, Katherine (‘Orinda’), 397.

Philpot, William, 757.

Poe, Edgar Allan, 694-696.

Pope, Alexander, 440-442.

Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 660.

Prior, Matthew, 422-428.


Quarles, Francis, 276, 277.


Raleigh, Sir Walter, 75-78, 122.

Ramsay, Allan, 437.

Randolph, Thomas, 299, 300.

Rands, William Brighty, 755, 756.

Reynolds, John, 177.

Rochester, Earl of, 413-416.

Rolleston, T. W., 849.

Rossetti, Christina Georgina, 779-789.

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 771

Rowe, Henry, 507, 508.

Rowlands, Richard, 165.

Ruskin, John, 744.

Russell, George William, 872, 873.


Scott, Alexander, 43, 44.

Scott, Sir Walter, 542-548.

Scott, William Bell, 731.

Sedley, Sir Charles, 409, 410.

Shakespeare, William, 56 (?), 123-164.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 605-618.

Shirley, James, 287, 288.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 88-95.

Sigerson, Dora, 881.

Skelton, John, 30, 31.

Smart, Christopher, 465.

Smith, Alexander, 777, 778.

Smollett, Tobias George, 464.

Southey, Caroline, 596.

Southey, Robert, 556.

Southwell, Robert, 108, 109.

Spenser, Edmund, 79-84.

Stanley, Thomas, 394.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 846-848.

Stevenson, William, 49.

Stirling, Earl of, 221.

Strode, William, 393.

Suckling, Sir John, 325-328.

Surrey, Earl of, 39-41.

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 808-811.

Sylvester, Joshua, 115.


Taylor, Sir Henry, 656.

Tennyson, Frederick, 688.

Tennyson, Lord, 699-709.

Thom, William, 655.

Thompson, Francis, 875.

Thomson, James, 448.

Thomson, James, 796-799.

Thurlow, Lord, 586.

Todhunter, John, 814, 815.

Traherne, Thomas, 406.

Turner, Charles Tennyson, 693.


Vaughan, Henry, 362-365.


Wade, Thomas, 676.

Walker, William Sidney, 639.

Waller, Edmund, 304-306.

Walsh, William, 429.

Watson, William, 852-854.

Watts, Isaac, 434, 435.

Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 807.

Webbe, Charles, 403.

Webster, John, 218-220.

Wever, Robert, 45.

Whitman, Walt, 742, 743.

Whittier, John Greenleaf, 690.

Wither, George, 236-239.

Wolfe, Charles, 603, 604.

Woods, Margaret L., 882.

Wordsworth, William, 515-541.

Wotton, Sir Henry, 178-180.

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 34-38.


Yeats, William Butler, 862-864.




INDEX OF FIRST LINES


No.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 698

A child’s a plaything for an hour, 511

A! Fredome is a noble thing!, 9

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!, 793

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies, 843

A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer, 714

A rose, as fair as ever saw the North, 242

A slumber did my spirit seal, 519

A star is gone! a star is gone!, 642

A sunny shaft did I behold, 555

A sweet disorder in the dress, 258

A thousand martyrs I have made, 412

A weary lot is thine, fair maid, 546

Above yon sombre swell of land, 673

Absence, hear thou my protestation, 197

Absent from thee, I languish still, 413

Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint, 280

Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss!, 167

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever, 499

Ah, Chloris! that I now could sit, 406

Ah, how sweet it is to love!, 400

Ah! were she pitiful as she is fair, 104

Ah, what avails the sceptred race, 558

Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon, 739

Alexis, here she stay’d; among these pines, 228

All are not taken; there are left behind, 680

All holy influences dwell within, 602

All in the April morning, 877

All is best, though we oft doubt, 324

All my past life is mine no more, 414

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair, 554

All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter, 726

All the flowers of the spring, 220

All the words that I utter, 862

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 551

All under the leaves and the leaves of life, 382

Allas! my worthy maister honorable, 13

Amarantha sweet and fair, 346

An ancient chestnut’s blossoms threw, 572

And, like a dying lady lean and pale, 609

And wilt thou leave me thus?, 35

Angel, king of streaming morn, 507

Angel spirits of sleep, 833

April, April, 852

Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?, 204

As doctors give physic by way of prevention, 428

As I in hoary winter’s night, 109

As I was walking all alane, 380

As it fell upon a day, 203

As one that for a weary space has lain, 841

As those we love decay, we die in part, 448

As we rush, as we rush in the Train, 796

As ye came from the holy land, 26

Ask me no more where Jove bestows, 289

Ask me why I send you here, 254

Ask not the cause why sullen Spring, 402

At her fair hands how have I grace entreated, 64

At the last, tenderly, 742

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly, 585

Awake, Æolian lyre, awake, 455

Away! Away!, 462

Away, delights! go seek some other dwelling, 211

Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon, 617


Bacchus must now his power resign, 445

Balow, my babe, lie still and sleep!, 28

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, 630

Be it right or wrong, these men among, 25

Beating Heart! we come again, 746

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, 834

Beauty clear and fair, 215

Beauty sat bathing by a spring, 87

Behold her, single in the field, 528

Being your slave, what should I do but tend, 151

Best and brightest, come away, 606

Bid me to live, and I will live, 266

Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav’ns joy, 309

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 136

Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon, 329

Bonnie Kilmeny gaed up the glen, 514

Brave flowers--that I could gallant it like you, 278

Breathes there the man with soul so dead, 547

Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art, 637

Bring me wine, but wine which never grew, 671

Busy, curious, thirsty fly!, 438

By feathers green, across Casbeen, 859

Bytuene Mershe ant Averil, 2


Ca’ the yowes to the knowes, 473, 506

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren, 218

Calm on the bosom of thy God!, 622

Calme was the day, and through the trembling ayre, 81

Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet, 805

Charm me asleep, and melt me so, 263

Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry, 256

Chloe’s a Nymph in flowery groves, 395

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 807

Clerk Saunders and may Margaret, 371

Cold in the earth--and the deep snow piled above thee, 736

Come away, come away, death, 134

Come, dear children, let us away, 747

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height, 706

Come into the garden, Maud, 708

Come, let us now resolve at last, 417

Come little babe, come silly soul, 74

Come live with me and be my Love, 121

Come not in terrors clad, to claim, 596

Come, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving, 207

Come, Sleep; O Sleep! the certain knot of peace, 94

Come, spur away, 300

Come then, as ever, like the wind at morning!, 870

Come thou, who art the wine and wit, 274

Come unto these yellow sands, 129

Come, worthy Greek! Ulysses, come, 112

Condemn’d to Hope’s delusive mine, 451

Corydon, arise, my Corydon!, 57

Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 733

Crabbèd Age and Youth, 56

Cupid and my Campaspe play’d, 85

Cynthia, to thy power and thee, 208

Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench, 320


Dark, deep, and cold the current flows, 588

Dark to me is the earth. Dark to me are the heavens, 817

Daughter to that good Earl, once President, 317*

Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark, 587

Dear Lord, receive my son, whose winning love, 223

Dear love, for nothing less than thee, 199

Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee, 202

Deep on the convent-roof the snows, 703

‘Do you remember me? or are you proud?’, 569

Does the road wind uphill all the way?, 783

Drink to me only with thine eyes, 185

Drop, drop, slow tears, 222


Earth has not anything to show more fair, 520

E’en like two little bank-dividing brooks, 276

Enough; and leave the rest to Fame!, 361

Even such is Time, that takes in trust, 78

Ever let the Fancy roam, 631


Fain would I change that note, 68

Fair Amoret is gone astray, 432

Fair and fair, and twice so fair, 101

Fair daffodils, we weep to see, 252

Fair is my Love and cruel as she’s fair, 113

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, 253

Fair ship, that from the Italian shore, 707

Fair stood the wind for France, 119

False though she be to me and love, 431

False world, good night! since thou hast brough, 190

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, 153

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, 140

Fine knacks for ladies! cheap, choice, brave, and new, 58

First came the primrose, 767

Flowers nodding gaily, scent in air, 874

Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race, 308

Fly hence, shadows, that do keep, 235

Follow a shadow, it still flies you, 187

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!, 170

Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet!, 171

Foolish prater, what dost thou, 351

For a name unknown, 857

For her gait, if she be walking, 243

For knighthood is not in the feats of warre, 32

Forbear, bold youth; all’s heaven here, 397

Forget not yet the tried intent, 34

Fra bank to bank, fra wood to wood I rin, 114

Fresh Spring, the herald of loves mighty king, 79

From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 399

From low to high doth dissolution climb, 539

From the forests and highlands, 605

From you have I been absent in the spring, 157

From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass, 559

Full fathom five thy father lies, 131


Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 248

Get up, get up for shame! The blooming morn, 247

Give a man a horse he can ride, 798

Give all to love, 669

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, 77

Give pardon, blessèd soul, to my bold cries, 110

Give place, you ladies, and begone!, 53

Go and catch a falling star, 196

Go fetch to me a pint o’ wine, 496

Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill, 751

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand, 684

Go, lovely Rose, 305

God Lyæus, ever young, 214

God of our fathers, known of old, 867

God who created me, 855

Gone were but the winter cold, 591

Good-morrow to the day so fair, 268

Great men have been among us; hands that penn’d, 525


Had we but world enough, and time, 357

Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!, 476

Hail holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born, 322

Hail, sister springs, 337

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!, 608

Hallow the threshold, crown the posts anew!, 332

Hame, hame, hame, O hame fain wad I be, 590

Happy those early days, when I, 362

Hark! ah, the Nightingale, 752

Hark! hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings, 139

Hark! Now everything is still, 219

Hark! the mavis’ evening sang, 506

He first deceased; she for a little tried, 180

He has conn’d the lesson now, 660

He that is by Mooni now, 827

He that is down needs fear no fall, 366

He that loves a rosy cheek, 292

He who has once been happy is for aye, 818

Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes, 715

Hear the voice of the Bard, 488

Hear, ye ladies that despise, 213

Helen, thy beauty is to me, 694

Hence, all you vain delights, 216

Hence, heart, with her that must depart, 43

Hence loathed Melancholy, 310

Hence vain deluding joyes, 311

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, 262

Here a little child I stand, 271

Here a pretty baby lies, 273

Here, ever since you went abroad, 567

Here in this sequester’d close, 824

Here she lies, a pretty bud, 272

Hey nonny no!, 59

Hey! now the day dawis, 48

Hierusalem, my happy home, 61

High-spirited friend, 191

Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be, 92

His golden locks Time hath to silver turn’d, 102

How happy is he born and taught, 179

How like a Winter hath my absence been, 156

How many times do I love thee, dear?, 668

How near me came the hand of Death, 239

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 458

How vainly men themselves amaze, 359

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber, 435

Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere, 11


I am that which began, 809

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?, 621

I arise from dreams of thee, 611

I ask no kind return of love, 475

I came into the City and none knew me, 878

I cannot change as others do, 415

I cannot eat but little meat, 49

I dare not ask a kiss, 250

I did but look and love awhile, 419

I did not choose thee, dearest. It was Love, 819

I do confess thou’rt smooth and fair, 182

I do not love thee!--no! I do not love thee!, 692

I dream’d that, as I wander’d by the way, 616

I dug, beneath the cypress shade, 594

I feed a flame within, which so torments me, 401

I flung me round him, 803

I got me flowers to straw Thy way, 282

I have a mistress, for perfections rare, 299

I have had playmates, I have had companions, 577

I intended an Ode, 825

I know a little garden-close, 802

I know a thing that’s most uncommon, 440

I know my soul hath power to know all things, 181

I left thee last, a child at heart, 678

I long have had a quarrel set with Time, 823

I loved a lass, a fair one, 236

I loved him not; and yet now he is gone, 557

I loved thee once; I’ll love no more, 183

I made another garden, yea, 829

I mind me in the days departed, 679

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, 879

I, my dear, was born to-day, 425

I play’d with you ’mid cowslips blowing, 593

I pray thee, leave, love me no more, 116

I said--Then, dearest, since ’tis so, 727

I saw fair Chloris walk alone, 393

I saw my Lady weep, 66

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn, 647

I saw where in the shroud did lurk, 579

I sent a ring--a little band, 641

I sing of a maiden, 23

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife, 576

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless, 681

I that in heill was and gladnèss, 21

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, 538

I thought once how Theocritus had sung, 682

I thought to meet no more, so dreary seem’d, 620

I took my heart in my hand, 782

I travell’d among unknown men, 517

I wander’d lonely as a cloud, 530

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, 864

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight, 846

I wish I were where Helen lies, 387

I, with whose colours Myra dress’d her head, 96

Ichot a burde in boure bryht, 4

I’d a dream to-night, 658

I’d wed you without herds, without money or rich array, 713

I’m sittin’ on the stile, Mary, 691

I’m wearin’ awa’, John, 512

I’ve heard them lilting at our ewe-milking, 466

If all the world and love were young, 122

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, 459

If doughty deeds my lady please, 469

If I had thought thou couldst have died, 604

‘If I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’, 761

If rightly tuneful bards decide, 461

If the quick spirits in your eye, 290

If the red slayer think he slays, 672

If there were dreams to sell, 667

If thou must love me, let it be for naught, 685

If thou wilt ease thine heart, 666

If to be absent were to be, 344

If you go over desert and mountain, 830

In a drear-nighted December, 632

In a harbour grene aslepe whereas I lay, 45

In a quiet water’d land, a land of roses, 849

In a valley of this restles mind, 24

In after days when grasses high, 826

In Clementina’s artless mien, 568

In going to my naked bed as one that would have slept, 46

In Scarlet town, where I was born, 389

In somer when the shawes be sheyne, 22

In the hall the coffin waits, and the idle armourer stands, 768

In the highlands, in the country places, 847

In the hour of death, after this life’s whim, 883

In the hour of my distress, 275

In the merry month of May, 73

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, 550

Into the silver night, 845

Into the skies, one summer’s day, 756

Is it so small a thing, 754

It fell about the Martinmas, 374

It fell in the ancient periods, 670

It fell on a day, and a bonnie simmer day, 377

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, 521

It is an ancient Mariner, 549

It is not, Celia, in our power, 405

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh, 649

It is not growing like a tree, 194

It is not to be thought of that the flood, 526

It is the miller’s daughter, 701

It was a dismal and a fearful night, 352

It was a lover and his lass, 137

It was a’ for our rightfu’ King, 505

It was many and many a year ago, 695

It was not in the Winter, 651

It was not like your great and gracious ways!, 762

It was the Winter wilde, 307

Its edges foam’d with amethyst and rose, 873


Jenny kiss’d me when we met, 592

John Anderson, my jo, John, 497


Know, Celia, since thou art so proud, 293


Ladies, though to your conquering eyes, 404

Late at een, drinkin’ the wine, 370

Lawrence of vertuous Father vertuous Son, 319

Lay a garland on my herse, 209

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust, 95

Lenten ys come with love to toune, 3

Lestenyt, lordynges, both elde and yinge, 7

Let me go forth, and share, 853

Let me not to the marriage of true minds, 162

Let the bird of loudest lay, 144

Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice, 335

Life! I know not what thou art, 474

Like the Idalian queen, 225

Like thee I once have stemm’d the sea of life, 472

Like to Diana in her summer weed, 103

Like to the clear in highest sphere, 100

Lo, quhat it is to love, 44

London, thou art of townes _A per se_, 19

Long-expected One-and-twenty, 450

Look not thou on beauty’s charming, 544

Lords, knights, and squires, the numerous band, 423

Loud mockers in the roaring street, 869

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, 286

Love guards the roses of thy lips, 99

Love in fantastic triumph sate, 411

Love in my bosom like a bee, 97

Love is a sickness full of woes, 111

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning, 801

Love is the blossom where there blows, 233

Love not me for comely grace, 71

Love, thou art absolute, sole Lord, 338

Love thy country, wish it well, 443

Love wing’d my Hopes and taught me how to fly, 62


Marie Hamilton’s to the kirk gane, 375

Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, 775

Martial, the things that do attain, 41

Marvel of marvels, if I myself shall behold, 785

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings, 470

May! Be thou never graced with birds that sing, 245

May! queen of blossoms, 586

Me so oft my fancy drew, 238

Men grew sae cauld, maids sae unkind, 655

Merry Margaret, 31

Methought I saw my late espousèd Saint, 321

Mild is the parting year, and sweet, 565

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour, 524

More love or more disdain I crave, 403

Mortality, behold and fear!, 234

Most glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day, 84

Mother, I cannot mind my wheel, 564

Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!, 629

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, 634

Music, when soft voices die, 618

My blood so red, 385

My Damon was the first to wake, 480

My days among the Dead are past, 556

My dear and only Love, I pray, 334

My delight and thy delight, 832

My faint spirit was sitting in the light, 613

My grief on the sea, 858

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains, 624

My heart is high above, my body is full of bliss, 52

My heart is like a singing bird, 780

My heart leaps up when I behold, 532

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes, 763

My Love in her attire doth show her wit, 63

My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming, 158

My love o’er the water bends dreaming, 797

My lute, awake! perform the last, 38

My mother bore me in the southern wild, 487

My new-cut ashlar takes the light, 865

My noble, lovely, little Peggy, 427

My Peggy is a young thing, 437

My Phillis hath the morning sun, 98

My silks and fine array, 485

My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on, 277

My soul, there is a country, 363

My thoughts hold mortal strife, 230

My true love hath my heart, and I have his, 88


Nay but you, who do not love her, 721

Near to the silver Trent, 118

Never seek to tell thy love, 492

Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore, 176

New doth the sun appear, 231

News from a foreign country came, 406

No coward soul is mine, 738

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist, 628

No thyng ys to man so dere, 8

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away, 730

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 603

Not, Celia, that I juster am, 410

‘Not ours,’ say some, ‘the thought of death to dread, 854

Not unto us, O Lord, 876

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white, 705

Now the lusty spring is seen, 212

Now the North wind ceases, 774

Now winter nights enlarge, 174

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room, 533


O, Brignall banks are wild and fair, 543

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, 743

O Christ of God! whose life and death, 690

O come, soft rest of cares! come, Night!, 107

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes, 789

O fly, my Soul! What hangs upon, 287

O fly not, Pleasure, pleasant-hearted Pleasure, 816

O for some honest lover’s ghost, 325

O for the mighty wakening that aroused, 676

O friend! I know not which way I must look, 523

O goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung, 626

O happy dames! that may embrace, 40

O happy Tithon! if thou know’st thy hap, 221

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, 150

O, I hae come from far away, 731

O joy of creation, 813

O lusty May, with Flora queen!, 51

O many a day have I made good ale in the glen, 638

O Mary, at thy window be, 493

O Mary, go and call the cattle home, 740

O Memory, thou fond deceiver, 468

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?, 133

O mortal folk, you may behold and see, 33

O my Dark Rosaleen, 664

O my deir hert, young Jesus sweit, 384

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose, 503

O never say that I was false of heart, 161

O perfect Light, which shaid away, 106

O ruddier than the cherry!, 439

O saw ye bonnie Lesley, 500

O saw ye not fair Ines?, 650

O sing unto my roundelay, 479

O sleep, my babe, hear not the rippling wave, 661

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!, 636

O Sorrow!, 623

O that ’twere possible, 709

O the sad day!, 407

O thou, by Nature taught, 457

O thou that swing’st upon the waving hair, 347

O thou undaunted daughter of desires!, 339

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down, 484

O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay, 509

O, to be in England, 729

O turn away those cruel eyes, 394

O waly, waly, up the bank, 388

O were my Love yon lilac fair, 502

O western wind, when wilt thou blow, 27

O wha will shoe my bonny foot?, 369

O what a plague is love!, 392

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 633

‘O which is the last rose?’, 851

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, 610

O world, be nobler, for her sake!, 871

O world, in very truth thou art too young, 822

O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she, 10

O, you plant the pain in my heart with your wistful eyes, 814

Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw, 494

Of all the flowers rising now, 757

Of all the girls that are so smart, 444

Of all the torments, all the cares, 429

Of Nelson and the North, 581

Of Neptune’s empire let us sing, 173

Of on that is so fayr and bright, 6

Oft, in the stilly night, 584

Often I think of the beautiful town, 689

Oh how comely it is and how reviving, 323

On a day--alack the day!, 124

On a starr’d night Prince Lucifer uprose, 776

On a time the amorous Silvy, 72

On either side the river lie, 700

On parent knees, a naked new-born child, 478

On the deck of Patrick Lynch’s boat I sat in woful plight, 734

On the Sabbath-day, 778

On the wide level of a mountain’s head, 553

Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, 522

One more Unfortunate, 654

One word is too often profaned, 615

Only tell her that I love, 421

O’re the smooth enameld green, 312

Orpheus with his lute made trees, 143

Others abide our question. Thou art free, 753

Out of the night that covers me, 842

Out upon it, I have loved, 326

Over hill, over dale, 127

Over the mountains, 391

Over the sea our galleys went, 716


Pack, clouds, away! and welcome, day!, 205

Passing away, saith the World, passing away, 784

Passions are liken’d best to floods and streams, 75

Past ruin’d Ilion Helen lives, 561

Peace, Shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on?, 882

Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, 837

Phœbus, arise!, 224

Piping down the valleys wild, 486

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 164

Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds, 303

Pray but one prayer for me ’twixt thy closed lips, 800

Proud Maisie is in the wood, 542

Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak, 562

Pure stream, in whose transparent wave, 464

Put your head, darling, darling, darling, 712


Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, 184

Queen of fragrance, lovely Rose, 449

Quhen Flora had o’erfret the firth, 50

Quoth tongue of neither maid nor wife, 656


Remain, ah not in youth alone!, 566

Remember me when I am gone away, 787

Return, return! all night my lamp is burning, 766

‘Rise,’ said the Master, ‘come unto the feast’, 711

Robin sat on gude green hill, 16

Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river, 665

Rorate coeli desuper!, 20

Rose-cheek’d Laura, come, 169

Roses, their sharp spines being gone, 141

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, 725


Sabrina fair, 315

Safe where I cannot die yet, 786

Say, crimson Rose and dainty Daffodil, 177

Say not the struggle naught availeth, 741

Says Tweed to Till, 383

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown’d, 534

Seamen three! What men be ye?, 595

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!, 627

See how the flowers, as at parade, 356

See the Chariot at hand here of Love, 188

See where she sits upon the grassie greene, 80

See with what simplicity, 358

See yon blithe child that dances in our sight!, 662

Sense with keenest edge unusèd, 838

Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm, 821

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?, 145

Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 810

Shall I thus ever long, and be no whit the neare?, 54

Shall I, wasting in despair, 237

She beat the happy pavèment, 345

She dwelt among the untrodden ways, 516

She fell away in her first ages spring, 83

She is not fair to outward view, 644

She knelt upon her brother’s grave, 790

She pass’d away like morning dew, 645

She stood breast-high amid the corn, 652

She walks in beauty, like the night, 600

She walks--the lady of my delight, 880

She was a phantom of delight, 529

She was a queen of noble Nature’s crowning, 643

She who to Heaven more Heaven doth annex, 333

She’s somewhere in the sunlight strong, 868

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 495

Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night, 261

Since all that I can ever do for thee, 795

Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye, 69

Since I noo mwore do zee your feäce, 659

Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part, 117

Sing his praises that doth keep, 210

Sing lullaby, as women do, 47

Sister, awake! close not your eyes!, 67

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright, 490

So shuts the marigold her leaves, 244

So, we’ll go no more a-roving, 599

Softly, O midnight Hours!, 732

Some vex their souls with jealous pain, 418

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife, 545

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king, 166

Stand close around, ye Stygian set, 571

Stay, O sweet, and do not rise!, 195

Steer, hither steer your wingèd pines, 241

Stern Daughter of the voice of God!, 531

Still do the stars impart their light, 331

Still let my tyrants know, I am not doom’d to wear, 737

Still to be neat, still to be drest, 186

Strange fits of passion have I known, 515

Strew on her roses, roses, 750

Sublime--invention ever young, 465

Sumer is icumen in, 1

Summer set lip to earth’s bosom bare, 875

Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs, 364

Surprised by joy--impatient as the Wind, 537

Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, 811

Sweet are the rosy memories of the lips, 794

Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes, 264

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 281

Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv’st unseen, 314

Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, 640

Sweet rois of vertew and of gentilness, 18

Sweet Spring, thou turn’st with all thy goodly train, 227

Sweet western wind, whose luck it is, 249

Sweetest Saviour, if my soul, 284

Swiftly walk over the western wave, 612

Take, O take those lips away, 138

Tary no longer; toward thyn heritage, 14

Tell me not of a face that’s fair, 354

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind, 343

Tell me not what too well I know, 570

Tell me where is Fancy bred, 132

Th’ expense of Spirit in a waste of shame, 163

Thank Heaven! the crisis, 696

That time of year thou may’st in me behold, 152

That which her slender waist confined, 304

That zephyr every year, 226

The beauty and the life, 229

The blessèd Damozel lean’d out, 771

The boat is chafing at our long delay, 850

The chough and crow to roost are gone, 510

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 453

The day begins to droop, 839

The days are sad, it is the Holy tide, 688

The fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays, 777

The forward youth that would appear, 355

The glories of our blood and state, 288

The gray sea and the long black land, 724

The Indian weed witherèd quite, 390

The irresponsive silence of the land, 788

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!, 601

The king sits in Dunfermline town, 368

The Lady Mary Villiers lies, 294

The lark now leaves his wat’ry nest, 301

The last and greatest Herald of Heaven’s King, 232

The leaves are falling; so am I, 575

The linnet in the rocky dells, 735

The loppèd tree in time may grow again, 108

The lovely lass o’ Inverness, 504

The man of life upright, 175

The merchant, to secure his treasure, 424

The moth’s kiss, first!, 723

The murmur of the mourning ghost, 765

The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth, 91

The rain set early in to-night, 720

The red rose whispers of passion, 831

The reivers they stole Fair Annie, 372

The ring, so worn as you behold, 482

The Rose was sick and smiling died, 255

The seas are quiet when the winds give o’er, 306

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings, 39

The spacious firmament on high, 433

The splendour falls on castle walls, 704

The Star that bids the Shepherd fold, 313

The sun descending in the west, 491

The sun rises bright in France, 589

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 349

The twentieth year is wellnigh past, 471

The wine of Love is music, 799

The world is too much with us; late and soon, 535

The world’s great age begins anew, 607

The year’s at the spring, 718

The young May moon is beaming, love, 582

Thee too, modest tressèd maid, 508

Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now, 154

There ance was a may, and she lo’ed na men, 430

There are two births; the one when light, 330

There be none of Beauty’s daughters, 598

There is a garden in her face, 168

There is a Lady sweet and kind, 70

There is a mountain and a wood between us, 574

There is a silence where hath been no sound, 648

There is sweet music here that softer falls, 702

There lived a wife at Usher’s well, 378

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 536

There were three ravens sat on a tree, 379

There were twa sisters sat in a bour, 376

There’s a glade in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe, 815

There’s a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield, 866

There’s a woman like a dew-drop, she’s so purer than the purest, 722

There’s not a nook within this silent Pass, 540

They are all gone into the world of light!, 365

They are waiting on the shore, 804

They flee from me that sometime did me seek, 37

They seem’d, to those who saw them meet, 710

They that have power to hurt and will do none, 155

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, 759

They all were looking for a king, 770

This ae nighte, this ae nighte, 381

This hinder yeir I hard be tald, 17

This is a spray the Bird clung to, 728

This little vault, this narrow room, 295

This winter’s weather it waxeth cold, 29

Thou art to all lost love the best, 267

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, 625

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies, 398

Though beauty be the mark of praise, 189

Three years she grew in sun and shower, 518

Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheer’d my way, 583

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, 748

Throw away Thy rod, 283

Thus the Mayne glideth, 717

Thus when the silent grave becomes, 447

Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts, 148

Thy restless feet now cannot go, 341

Thy soul within such silent pomp did keep, 420

Tiger, tiger, burning bright, 489

Time is the feather’d thing, 296

’Tis a dull sight, 697

To all you ladies now at land, 408

To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb, 460

To live within a cave--it is most good, 792

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, 159

To mute and to material things, 548

To my true king I offer’d free from stain, 657

To the Ocean now I fly, 316

To these whom death again did wed, 342

To-day, all day, I rode upon the down, 820

To-night retired, the queen of heaven, 463

Too late for love, too late for joy, 779

Too solemn for day, too sweet for night, 639

Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, 812

True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank, 367

Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet?, 744

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side, 456

’Twas the dream of a God, 881

Twenty years hence my eyes may grow, 560


Under the greenwood tree, 135

Under the wide and starry sky, 848

Under yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward, 772

Underneath this myrtle shade, 350

Underneath this sable herse, 246

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!, 683

Up the airy mountain, 769

Upon my lap my sovereign sits, 165

Urns and odours bring away!, 142

Venus, take my votive glass, 426

Verse, a breeze ’mid blossoms straying, 552

Vital spark of heav’nly flame!, 442


Waes-hael for knight and dame!, 674

We are the music-makers, 828

We saw Thee in Thy balmy nest, 340

We see them not--we cannot hear, 675

We, that did nothing study but the way, 279

We watch’d her breathing thro’ the night, 653

We’ve trod the maze of error round, 481

Weave the warp, and weave the woof, 454

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan, 217

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, 105

Weep with me, all you that read, 193

Weep you no more, sad fountains, 65

Welcome, maids of honour!, 251

Welcome, welcome! do I sing, 240

Well then! I now do plainly see, 353

Were I as base as is the lowly plain, 115

Wharefore sou’d ye talk o’ love, 619

What beck’ning ghost, along the moonlight shade, 441

What bird so sings, yet so does wail?, 86

What conscience, say, is it in thee, 265

What have I done for you, 844

What is your substance, whereof are you made, 149

What needs complaints, 269

What nymph should I admire or trust, 422

What should I say?, 36

What sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants we see, 42

What was he doing, the great god Pan, 687

When by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked, 773

When, Cœlia, must my old day set, 396

When daisies pied and violets blue, 125

When, dearest, I but think of thee, 328

When Death to either shall come, 840

When Delia on the plain appears, 449

When God at first made Man, 285

When I am dead, my dearest, 781

When I consider how my light is spent, 318

When I have borne in memory what has tamed, 527

When I have fears that I may cease to be, 635

When I survey the bright, 298

When icicles hang by the wall, 126

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, 146

When in the chronicle of wasted time, 160

When Jessie comes with her soft breast, 791

When Letty had scarce pass’d her third glad year, 693

When like the early rose, 663

When Love arose in heart and deed, 755

When Love with unconfinèd wings, 348

When lovely woman stoops to folly, 467

When maidens such as Hester die, 578

When my love was away, 836

When our two souls stand up erect and strong, 686

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies, 872

When the fierce North-wind with his airy forces, 434

When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, 808

When the lamp is shatter’d, 614

When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame, 477

When the world is burning, 745

When thou must home to shades of underground, 172

When thou, poor Excommunicate, 291

When thy beauty appears, 436

When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought, 147

When we two parted, 597

When we were idlers with the loitering rills, 646

When you and I have play’d the little hour, 861

When you are old and gray and full of sleep, 863

Whenas in silks my Julia goes, 259

Where, like a pillow on a bed, 198

Where the bee sucks, there suck I, 130

Where the pools are bright and deep, 513

Where the remote Bermudas ride, 360

Whether on Ida’s shady brow, 483

While that the sun with his beams hot, 55

Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, 835

Who hath his fancy pleased, 89

Who is it that, this dark night, 90

Who is Silvia? What is she?, 123

Whoe’er she be, 336

Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm, 200

Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant, 541

Why does your brand sae drop wi’ blude, 373

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why, 416

Why, having won her, do I woo?, 760

Why I tie about thy wrist, 260

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?, 327

Why, why repine, my pensive friend, 563

Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun, 201

With all my will, but much against my heart, 764

With blackest moss the flower-plots, 699

With deep affection, 677

With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies!, 93

With leaden foot Time creeps along, 452

With lifted feet, hands still, 856

With margerain gentle, 30

Worschippe ye that loveris bene this May, 15

Wouldst thou hear what Man can say, 192

Wrong not, sweet empress of my heart, 76

Wynter wakeneth al my care, 5


Years, many parti-colour’d years, 573

Ye banks and braes and streams around, 501

Ye blushing virgins happy are, 297

Ye flowery banks o’ bonnie Doon, 498

Ye have been fresh and green, 270

‘Ye have robb’d,’ said he, ‘ye have slaughter’d and made an end, 860

Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands, 386

Ye learnèd sisters, which have oftentimes, 82

Ye little birds that sit and sing, 206

Ye Mariners of England, 580

Yes: in the sea of life enisled, 749

Yet if His Majesty, our sovereign lord, 60

Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more, 317

You are a tulip seen to-day, 257

You brave heroic minds, 120

You meaner beauties of the night, 178

You must be sad; for though it is to Heaven, 806

You promise heavens free from strife, 758

You spotted snakes with double tongue, 128

You’ll love me yet!--and I can tarry, 719

Your beauty, ripe and calm and fresh, 302

Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly, 12


PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
BY JOHN JOHNSON, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY