Puslapio vaizdai
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A DIRGE FOR SUMMER
SUMMER dieth :- o'er his bier
Chant a requiem low and clear!
Chant it for his dying flowers,
Chant it for his flying hours.
Let them wither all together

Now the world is past the prime
Of the golden olden-time.

Let them die, and dying Summer
Yield his kingdom to the comer
From the islands of the West :
He is weary, let him rest!
And let mellow Autumn's yellow
Fall upon the leafy prime
Of the golden olden-time.

Go, ye days, your deeds are done!
Be yon clouds about the sun
Your imperial winding-sheet;
Let the night winds as they fleet
Tell the story of the glory

Of the free great-hearted prime
Of the golden olden-time.

WHAT THE TRUMPETER SAID
AT a pot-house bar as I chanced to pass
I saw three men by the flare of the gas:
Soldiers two, with their red-coats gay,
And the third from Chelsea, a pensioner
gray,

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For there is nothing new beneath the sun;
Our doings have been done,
And that which shall be was.

THE THREAD OF LIFE

THE irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to

me:

Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand Thou too aloof, bound with the flawless band

Of inner solitude; we bind not thee; But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?

What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand ?·

And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,

And sometimes I remember days of old When fellowship seem'd not so far to seek And all the world and I seem'd much less cold,

And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold, And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.

FROM "LATER LIFE"

VI

WE lack, yet cannot fix upon the lack: Not this, nor that; yet somewhat, certainly.

We see the things we do not yearn to see Around us and what see we glancing back? Lost hopes that leave our hearts upon the rack,

Hopes that were never ours yet seem'd to be,

For which we steer'd on life's salt stormy

sea

Braving the sunstroke and the frozen pack.
If thus to look behind is all in vain,
And all in vain to look to left or right,
Why face we not our future once again,
Launching with hardier hearts across the
main,

Straining dim eyes to catch the invisible sight,

And strong to bear ourselves in patient

pain?

IX

STAR Sirius and the Pole Star dwell afar Beyond the drawings each of other's strength:

One blazes through the brief bright summer's length

Lavishing life-heat from a flaming car; While one unchangeable upon a throne Broods o'er the frozen heart of earth alone,

Content to reign the bright particular star Of some who wander or of some who groan.

They own no drawings each of other's strength,

Nor vibrate in a visible sympathy,

Nor veer along their courses each toward each :

Yet are their orbits pitch'd in harmony Of one dear heaven, across whose depth and length

Mayhap they talk together without speech.

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