Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

LE ROI EST MORT.

AND shall I weep that Love's no more,

And magnify his reign?

Sure never mortal man before
Would have his grief again.
Farewell the long continued ache,
The days a-dream, the nights awake,
I will rejoice and merry make,
And never more complain.

King Love is dead and gone for aye,
Who ruled with might and main,
For with a bitter word one day,
I found my tyrant slain,
And he in Heathenesse was bred,
Nor ever was baptized, 't is said,
Nor is of any creed, and dead
Can never rise again.

A CLASSIC LANDSCAPE.

THIS Wood might be some Grecian heritage
Of the antique world, this hoary ilex wood;
So broad the shade, so deep the solitude,
So

gray the air where Oread fancies brood.

Beyond, the fields are tall with purple sage;
The sky bends downward like a purple sheet
A purple wind-filled sail i' the noonday heat;
And past the river shine the fields of wheat.

[ocr errors]

O tender wheat, O starry saxifrage,

O deep-red tulips, how the fields are fair!
Far off the mountains pierce the quivering air,
Ash-colored, mystical, remote, and bare.

How far they look, the Mountains of Mirage,
Or northern hills of Heaven, how far away!
In front the long paulonia blossoms sway
From leafless boughs across that dreamy gray.

O world, how worthy of a golden age!

How might Theocritus have sung and found The Oreads here, the Naiads gathering round, Their pallid locks still dripping to the ground. For me, O world, thou art how mere a stage, Whereon the human soul must play alone, In a dead language, with the plot unknown, Nor learn what happens when the play is done.

INVOCATIONS.

O SONG in the nightingale's throat, O music, Dropt as it fell, by a falling star,

[ocr errors]

All of the silence is filled with thy pain,
Listening till it shall echo again.

O song in the nightingale's throat, O music,
Thou art the soul of the silence afar!

O space of the moon in the starless heaven,

Raining a whiteness on moorland and sea,
Falling as lightly and purely as dew,
All of the shadow thou filterest through
O space of the moon in the starless heaven,
Surely the night is the shadow of thee!

O silence of Death, O world of darkness,
When over me the last shadow shall fall,
Holdest thou safe in the night all around
Any moon to arise, any music to sound?
O silence of Death, O world of darkness,
Shall we perceive thee, or know thee at all?

REMEMBRANCE.

O NIGHT of death, O night that bringest all,
Night full of dreams and large with promises,
O night, that holdest on thy shadowy knees
Sleep for all fevers, hope for every thrall;
Bring thou to her for whom I wake and call,
Bring her when I am dead, for memories
Our vanished love, and all our vanished ease;
And I shall live again beneath the pall!

Then let my face, pale as a waning moon,
Rise on thy dark and be again as dear;
Let my dead voice find its forgotten tune
And strike again as sweetly in her ear,
As when, upon my lips, one far-off June,

Thy name O Death-she could not brook to hear.

[ocr errors]

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.

WOODSTOCK MAZE.

'O NEVER shall

any one find you then!' Said he, merrily pinching her cheek;

'But why?' she asked, -- he only laughed, — 'Why shall it be thus, now speak!'

'Because so like a bird art thou,

Thou must live within green trees,

With nightingales and thrushes and wrens,
And the humming of wild bees.'

Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day
Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay.

'Nay, nay, you jest, no wren am I,
Nor thrush nor nightingale,

And rather would keep this arras and wall 'Tween me and the wind's assail.

I like to hear little Minnie's gay laugh,

And the whistle of Japes the page,

Or to watch old Madge when her spindle twirls,
And she tends it like a sage.'

Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall,
Fall and fall over churchyard or hall.

'Yea, yea, but thou art the world's best Rose,
And about thee flowers I'll twine,

And wall thee round with holly and beech,
Sweet-briar and jessamine.'

'Nay, nay, sweet master, I'm no Rose,
But a woman indeed, indeed,

And love many things both great and small,
And of many things more take heed.’

Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day
Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay.

'Aye, sweetheart, sure thou sayest sooth,
I think thou art even so!

But yet needs must I dibble the hedge,
Close serried as hedge can grow.

Then Minnie and Japes and Madge shall be

Thy merry-mates all day long,

And thou shalt hear my bugle-call

For matin or even-song.'

Ok, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall,

Fall and fall over churchyard or hall.

'Look yonder now, my blue-eyed bird,
See'st thou aught by yon far stream?
There shalt thou find a more curious nest
Than ever thou sawest in dream.'
She followed his finger, she looked in vain,
She saw neither cottage nor hall,

But at his beck came a litter on wheels,
Screened by a red silk caul;

He lifted her in by her lily-white hand,

So left they the blithe sunny wall.

Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day
Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay.

The gorse and ling are netted and strong,
The conies leap everywhere,

The wild briar-roses by runnels grow

Seems never a pathway there.

thick;

Then come the dwarf oaks knotted and wrung
Breeding apples and mistletoe,

« AnkstesnisTęsti »