After the flitting of the bats, 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 seemed to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, "The day is dreary, About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blackened waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The clustered marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark, She only said, "My life is dreary, And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, She only said, "The night is dreary, All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creaked, The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about. Old faces glimmered through the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, "My life is dreary, 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 He will not come," she said; "BREAK, BREAK, BREAK!" BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Unwatched, the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down; Which makes the darkness and the light, Unloved, that beech will gather brown, And dwells not in the light alone, THE splendor 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, 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 forever and forever. 199 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. RALPH WALDO EMERSON. [U. s. A.] THE APOLOGY. THINK me not unkind and rude, To fetch his word to men. Tax not my sloth that I Fold my arms beside the brook; Each cloud that floated in the sky Writes a letter in my book. Chide me not, laborious band, Goes home loaded with a thought. There was never mystery But 't is figured in the flowers; Was never secret history But birds tell it in the bowers. One harvest from thy field TO EVA. O fair and stately maid, whose eyes At the same torch that lighted mine; Ah, let me blameless gaze upon Nor fear those watchful sentinels, Who charm the more their glance forbids, Chaste-glowing, underneath their lids, With fire that draws while it repels. THINE EYES STILL SHONE. Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, THINE eyes still shone for me, though far Like the bird from the woodlands to the I lonely roved the land or sea: As I behold yon evening star, Which yet beholds not me. This morn I climbed the misty hill, When the red-bird spread his sable wing, EACH AND ALL. LITTLE thinks, in the field, yon redcloaked clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down; Nor knowest thou what argument I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, ད་ cage: The gay enchantment was undone, As I spoke, beneath my feet Around me stood the oaks and firs; The rolling river, the morning bird;- THE PROBLEM. I LIKE a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles, Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure? Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle; Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below, The canticles of love and woe. The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity. -- Himself from God he could not free; Of leaves, and feathers from her breast; |