Puslapio vaizdai
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O TRUE and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay ;
In that it is thy marriage day

Is music more than any song.

Nor have I felt so much of bliss
Since first he told me that he loved
A daughter of our house; nor proved

Since that dark day a day like this:

Tho' I since then have number'd o'er
Some thrice three years: they went and came,
Remade the blood and changed the frame,

And yet is love not less, but more;

No longer caring to embalm
In dying songs a dead regret,
But like a statue solid-set,

And moulded in colossal calm.

Regret is dead, but love is more

Than in tho summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown

To something greater than before;

Which makes appear the songs I made
As echoes out of weaker times,
As half but idlo brawling rhymes,

The sport of random sun and shade.

But where is she, the bridal flower,

That must be made a wife ere noon t
She enters, glowing like tho moon

Of Eden on its bridal bower:

On mo she bends her blissful eyes

And then on thee; they meet thy look
And brighten like the star that shook

Betwixt the palms of paradise.

O when her life was yet in bud,

He too foretold tho perfect rose.
For thee she grew, for thee she grows

For ever, and as fair as good.

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And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight

Of learning lightly like a flower.

But now set out : the noon is near,
And I must give away the bride;
She fears not, or with thee beside

And me behind her, will not fear:

For I that danced her on my knee,
That watch'd her on her nurse's arm,
That shielded all her life from harm

At last must part with her to thee;

Now waiting to be made a wife,
Her feet, my darling, on the dead;
Their pensive tablets round her head,

And the most living words of life

Breathed in her car. The ring is on,
The “wilt thou’ answer'd, and again
The “wilt thou’ ask'd, till out of twain

Her sweet ‘I will' has made ye one.

Now sign your names, which shall be read,
Mute symbols of a joyful morn,
By village eyes as yet unborn;

The names are sign'd, and overhead

Begins the clash and clang that tells

The joy to every wandering breeze;
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees

The dead leaf trembles to the bells.

O happy hour, and happier hours

Await them. Many a merry face
Salutes them—maidens of the place,

That pelt us in the poreh with flowers.

O happy hour, behold the bride

With him to whom her hand I gave.
They leave the porch, they pass tho gravo

That has to-day its sunny sjde.

To-day the grave is bright for me,

For them the light of life increased,
Who stay to share the morning feast,

Who rest to-night beside the sea.

Let all my genial spirits advance
To meet and greet a whiter sun;
My drooping memory will not shun

The foaming grape of eastern France.

It circles round, and fancy plays,
And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom,
As drinking health to bride and groom

We wish them store of happy days.

Nor count me all to blame if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance, among the rest,

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy.

But they must go, the time draws on,
And those white-favour'd horses wait ;
They rise, but linger; it is late;

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.

A shade falls on us like the dark
From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass

To range the woods, to roam the park,

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