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ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA
You meaner beauties of the night,
Which 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?
Ye 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?
Ye curious chanters of the wood,
That warble forth dame Nature’s lays,
Thinking your passions understood
By your weak accents; what’s your praise
When Philomel her voice doth raise?
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?
Sir H. Wotton.
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 grow;
There cherries grow that 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 no peer nor prince may 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 approach with eye or hand,
These sacred cherries to come nigh,
– Till Cherry Ripe themselves do cry!
Anon.
MORNING
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 hill, let music shrill,
Give my fair Love good-morrow:
Black-bird and thrush, in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow!
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves
Sing my fair Love good-morrow.
To give my Love good-morrow
Sing birds in every furrow.
T. Heywood.
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 crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon Death’s purple altar now,
See where the victor-victim bleeds:
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb,
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.
J. Shirley.
ANNAN WATER
Annan Water’s wading deep,
And my Love Annie’s wondrous bonny;
And I am loath she should wet her feet,
Because I love her best of ony.’
He’s loupen on his bonny gray,
He rode the right gate and the ready;
For all the storm he wadna stay,
For seeking of his bonny lady.
And he has ridden o’er field and fell,
Through moor, and moss, and many a mire;
His spurs of steel were sair to bide,
And from her four feet flew the fire.
‘My bonny gray, now play your part!
If ye be the steed that wins my dearie,
With corn and hay ye’ll be fed for aye,
And never spur shall make you wearie.’
The gray was a mare, and a right gude mare,
But when she wan the Annan Water,
She could not have ridden the ford that night
Had a thousand merks been wadded at her.
‘O boatman, boatman, put off your boat,
Put off your boat for golden money!’
But for all the gold in fair Scotland,
He dared not take him through to Annie.
‘O I was sworn so late yestreen,
Not by a single oath, but mony!
I’ll cross the drumly stream to-night,
Or never could I face my honey.’
The side was stey, and the bottom deep,
From bank to brae the water pouring;
The bonny gray mare she swat for fear,
For she heard the water-kelpy roaring.
He spurr’d her forth into the flood,
I wot she swam both strong and steady;
But the stream was broad, and her strength did fail,
And he never saw his bonny lady!
Unknown.
TO A WATERFOWL
Whither, ’midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, —
The desert and illimitable air, —
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fann’d,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o’er thy shelter’d nest.
Thou’rt gone – the abyss of heaven
Hath swallow’d up thy form – yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He, who from zone to zone
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
W. C. Bryant.
SO, WE’LL GO NO MORE A ROVING
I
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.
II
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.
III
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.
Lord Byron.
SONG
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!
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied 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!
W. Shakespeare.
THE LAND O’ THE LEAL
I’m wearin’ awa’, Jean,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, Jean,
I’m wearin’ awa’
To the land o’ the leal.
There’s nae sorrow there, Jean,
There’s neither cauld nor care, Jean,
The day is aye fair
In the land o’ the leal.
Ye were aye leal and true, Jean,
Your task’s ended noo, Jean,
And I’ll welcome you
To the land o’ the leal.
Our bonnie bairn’s there, Jean,
She was baith guid and fair, Jean;
O we grudged her right sair
To the land o’ the leal!
Then dry that tearfu’ e’e, Jean,
My soul langs to be free, Jean,
And angels wait on me
To the land o’ the leal.
Now fare ye weel, my ain Jean,
This warld’s care is vain, Jean;
We’ll meet and aye be fain
In the land o’ the leal.
Lady Nairne.
SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS IN BERMUDA
Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean’s bosom unespied,
From a small boat that row’d along
The listening winds received this song:
‘What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze
Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks
That lift the deep upon their backs,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms, and prelate’s 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 then 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.
A. Marvell.
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 dimmed 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.
T. Moore.
THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD
We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o’er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The light-house, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again.
The first light swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.
And, as their splendour flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main, —
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
H. W. Longfellow.
THE WAR-SONG OF DINAS VAWR
The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.
On Dyfed’s richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
We met them, and o’erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us;
But we conquered them, and slew them.
As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.
We there, in strife bewildering,
Spilt blood enough to swim in,
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.
We brought away from battle,
And much their land bemoaned them,
Two thousand head of cattle,
And the head of him who owned them:
Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,
His head was borne before us;
His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.
T. L. Peacock.
ARETHUSA
Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows
In the Acroceraunian mountains, —
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams:
And gliding and springing,
She went, ever singing,
In murmurs as soft as sleep.
The Earth seemed to love her
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.
Then Alpheus bold,
On his glacier cold,
With his trident the mountains strook,
And opened a chasm
In the rocks: – with the spasm
All Erymanthus shook.
And the black south wind
It concealed behind
The urns of the silent snow,
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder
The bars of the springs below.
The beard and the hair
Of the River-god were
Seen through the torrent’s sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet Nymph’s flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.
‘Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!
And bid the deep hide me.
For he grasps me now by the hair!’
The loud Ocean heard,
To its blue depth stirred,
And divided at her prayer;
And under the water
The Earth’s white daughter
Fled like a sunny beam;
Behind her descended,
Her billows, unblended
With the brackish Dorian stream.
Like a gloomy stain
On the emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind, —
As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin
Down the streams of the cloudy wind.
Under the bowers
Where the Ocean Powers
Sit on their pearlèd thrones;
Through the coral woods
Of the weltering floods;
Over heaps of unvalued stones;
Through the dim beams
Which amid the streams
Weave a network of coloured light;
And under the caves,
Where the shadowy waves
Are as green as the forest’s night:
Outspeeding the shark,
And the swordfish dark, —
Under the ocean foam,
And up through the rifts
Of the mountain clifts, —
They passed to their Dorian home.
And now from their fountains
In Enna’s mountains,
Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted
Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore, —
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky
When they love but live no more.
P. B. Shelley.
THE DAY IS DONE
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me,
That my soul cannot resist;
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavour;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labour,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
H. W. Longfellow.
SONG
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 you knew,
My love!
No more of me you 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 his bridle-reins a shake,
Said, ‘Adieu for evermore,
My love!
And adieu for evermore.’
Sir W. Scott.
THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS
We walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun:
And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,
‘The will of God be done!’
A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.
And on that morning, through the grass,
And by the steaming rills,
We travelled merrily, to pass
A day among the hills.
‘Our work,’ said I, ‘was well begun;
Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,
So sad a sigh has brought?’
A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye
Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:
’Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind
A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.
’And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky, that April morn,
Of this the very brother.
’With rod and line I sued the sport
Which that sweet season gave,
And, to the church-yard come, stopped short
Beside my daughter’s grave.
’Nine summers had she scarcely seen,
The pride of all the vale;
And then she sang; – she would have been
A very nightingale.
’Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
And yet I loved her more,
For so it seemed, than till that day
I e’er had loved before.
’And, turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the church-yard yew,
A blooming girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.
’A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white:
To see a child so very fair
It was a pure delight!
’No fountain from its rocky cave
E’er tripped with foot so free;
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.
‘There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;
I looked at her, and looked again,
And did not wish her mine!’
Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
Methinks, I see him stand,
As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand.
W. Wordsworth.
TO HELEN
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicèan barks of yore
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary wayworn 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,
To 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!
E. A. Poe.
THE SKYLARK
Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place —
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud,
Far in the downy cloud,
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O’er fell and fountain sheen,
O’er moor and mountain green,
O’er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow’s rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place —
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
J. Hogg.
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-tone
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finish’d joy and moan
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
W. Shakespeare.
CUMNOR HALL
The dews of summer night did fall;
The moon, sweet Regent of the sky,
Silver’d the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew thereby.
Now nought was heard beneath the skies,
The sounds of busy life were still,
Save an unhappy lady’s sighs
That issued from that lonely pile.
‘Leicester!’ she cried, ‘is this thy love
That thou so oft hast sworn to me,
To leave me in this lonely grove,
Immured in shameful privity?
‘No more thou com’st with lover’s speed
Thy once-belovèd bride to see;
But, be she alive, or be she dead,
I fear, stern Earl, ’s the same to thee.
‘Not so the usage I received
When happy in my father’s hall;
No faithless husband then me grieved,
No chilling fears did me appal.
‘I rose up with the cheerful morn,
No lark more blithe, no flower more gay;
And like the bird that haunts the thorn
So merrily sung the livelong day.
‘If that my beauty is but small,
Among court ladies all despised,
Why didst thou rend it from that hall,
Where, scornful Earl! it well was prized?
‘But, Leicester, or I much am wrong,
Or ’tis not beauty lures thy vows;
Rather, ambition’s gilded crown
Makes thee forget thy humble spouse.
‘Then, Leicester, why, – again I plead,
The injured surely may repine, —
Why didst thou wed a country maid,
When some fair Princess might be thine?
‘Why didst thou praise my humble charms,
And oh! then leave them to decay?
Why didst thou win me to thy arms,
Then leave to mourn the livelong day?
‘The village maidens of the plain
Salute me lowly as they go;
Envious they mark my silken train,
Nor think a Countess can have woe.
‘How far less blest am I than them!
Daily to pine and waste with care!
Like the poor plant, that, from its stem
Divided, feels the chilling air.
‘My spirits flag – my hopes decay —
Still that dread death-bell smites my ear:
And many a boding seems to say,
Countess, prepare, thy end is near!’
Thus sore and sad that Lady grieved
In Cumnor Hall so lone and drear;
And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved,
And let fall many a bitter tear.
And ere the dawn of day appear’d,
In Cumnor Hall so lone and drear,
Full many a piercing scream was heard,
And many a cry of mortal fear.
The death-bell thrice was heard to ring;
An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the raven flapp’d its wing
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.
The mastiff howl’d at village door,
The oaks were shatter’d on the green;
Woe was the hour – for never more
That hapless Countess e’er was seen!
And in that manor now no more
Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball;
For ever since that dreary hour
Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall.
The village maids, with fearful glance,
Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall;
Nor ever lead the merry dance
Among the groves of Cumnor Hall.
Full many a traveller oft hath sigh’d,
And pensive wept the Countess’ fall,
As wand’ring onwards they’ve espied
The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall.
W. F. Mickle.