Puslapio vaizdai
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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 reclin'd

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-us'd 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, 't is 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 labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;

Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

ULYSSES

IT little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren

crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That lov'd me, and alone; on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vex'd the dim sea. I am become a name ;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known: cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, govern-
ments,

Myself not least, but honor'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life pil'd on
life

Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is sav'd
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard
myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle
Well-lov'd of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I
mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail :

My

There gloom the dark broad seas. mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and oppos'd Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil; Death closes all ; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks : The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs : the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

"T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down :
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days

Mov'd earth and heaven, that which we

are, we are :

One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

SIR GALAHAD

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel :

They reel, they roll in clanging lists,

And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers,

That lightly rain from ladies' hands.

How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favors fall!
For them I battle till the end,

To save from shame and thrall:
But all my heart is drawn above,

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine : I never felt the kiss of love,

Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,

Me mightier transports move and thrill;
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.

When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;

I hear a voice, but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair.

Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,

The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chaunts resound between.

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark;

I leap on board: no helmsman steers : I float till all is dark.

A gentle sound, an awful light!
Three angels bear the holy Grail :
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,

And star-like mingles with the stars.

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,

The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, springs from brand and
mail;

But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

A maiden knight-to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.

I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces cloth'd in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,

Whose odors haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,

This mortal armor that I wear,

This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

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The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet pip'd his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring;
A
gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Clos'd in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mix'd with violet
Her cream-white mule his pastern set:
And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

As fast she fled thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

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 vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

SONGS FROM "THE PRINCESS"

AS THRO' THE LAND

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
Oh, we fell out I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love

And kiss again with tears!

For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Oh, there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.

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BUGLE SONG

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, 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.

TEARS, IDLE TEARS

TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they

mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld,

Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge ; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns

The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a gimmering

square;

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

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Let the sound of those he wrought for, And the feet of those he fought for, Echo round his bones for evermore.

III

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow,
As fits an universal woe,

Let the long long procession go,
And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow,
And let the mournful martial music blow;
The last great Englishman is low.

IV

Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the Past.
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute :
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crime,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.

O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men
drew,

O iron nerve to true occasion true,

O fall'n at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew !

Such was he whom we deplore.

The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.
The great World-victor's victor will be seer

no more.

All is over and done :

Render thanks to the Giver,
England, for thy son.
Let the bell be toll'd.
Render thanks to the Giver,
And render him to the mould.
Under the cross of gold
That shines over city and river,
There he shall rest for ever
Among the wise and the bold.
Let the bell be toll'd:

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