Have faded long ago; But in these latter springs I saw Your own Olivia blown, From when she gamboll'd on the greens. The maiden blossoms of her teens I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, Yet, since I first could cast a shade nd from thy topmost branch discern ut thou, whereon I carved her name, That oft hast heard my vows, eclare when last Olivia came To sport beneath thy boughs. Oyesterday, you know, the fair Was holden at the town; er father left his good arm-chair, And rode his hunter down. And with him Albert came on his. Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, ne sent her voice thro' all the holt Before her, and the park. "A light wind chased her on the wing, "But light as any wind that blows The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, And turn'd to look at her. "And here she came, and round me play'd And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that you made ,,And in a fit of frolic mirth She strove to span my waist: Alas, I was so broad of girth, I could not be embraced. "I wish'd myself the fair young beech "Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet As woodbine's fragile hold, Or when I feel about my feet O muffle round thy knees with fern, But tell me, did she read the name "O yes, she wander'd round and round And found, and kiss'd the name she found, A teardrop trembled from its source, Then flush'd her seek with rosy light, Her kisses were so close and kind, But languidly adjust My vapid vegetable loves With anthers and with dust: For ah! my friend, the days were brief When that, which breathes within the leaf, From spray, and branch, and stem, Have suck'd and gather'd into one The life that spreads in them, She had not found me so remiss; I would have paid her kiss for kiss, O flourish high, with leafy towers, A thousand thanks for what I learn ,,'Tis little more: the day was warn; Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. ,,I took the swarming sound of life- And lull'd them in my own. "A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck, From head to ancle fine. Then close and dark my arms I spread, As when I see the woodman lift ,,I shook him down because he was He lies beside thee on the grass. O kiss him once for me, „O kiss him twice and thrice for me, For never yet was oak on lea This fruit of thine by Love is blest, I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, But thou, while kingdoms overse May never saw dismember thee. All throats that gurgle sweet! Balm-dews to bathe thy feet! All grass of silky feather grow And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells. The fat earth feed thy branchy root, That under deeply strikes! Nor ever lightning char thy grain, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, And hear me swear a solemn oath, And when my marriage morn may fall, In wreath about her hair. And I will work in prose and rhyme,. In which the swarthy ringdove sat, LOVE AND DUTY. Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work (itself Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself? Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy (years. The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time, To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me, When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, (would dwell One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice, Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep My own full-tuned,--hold passion in a leash, And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that (weigh'd Upon my brain, my senses and my soul! For love himself took part against himself To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love O this world's curse, beloved but hated(came Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and (mine, And crying,,,Who is this? behold thy bride." She push'd me from thee. If the sense is hard To alien ears, I did not speak to these No, not to thee, but to thyself in me: Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest (it all. Could Love part thus? was it not well to (speak, To have spoken once? It could not but be (well. The slow sweet hours that bring us all (things good, The slow sad hours that bring us all things (ill, And all good things from evil, brought the (night In which we sat together and alone. Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears As flow but once a life. The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and (died. Then follow'd counsel, comfort, and the (words That make a man feel strong in speaking (truth; Till now the dark was worn, and overhead Among herstars to hear us; stars that hung Upon their dissolution, we two rose, - Live, yet liveShall sharpest pathos blight us,knowing all Life needs for life is possible to willLive happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy (thoughts Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of (pearl Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. THE GOLDEN YEAR: WELL, you shall have that song which Leo(nard wrote: It was last summer on a tour in Wales: OldJames was with me: we that day had been Up Snowdon; andI wish'd for Leonard there, And found him in Llanberis: then we crost Between the lakes, and chamber'd half way (up The counter side: and that same song of his He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore They said he lived shut up within himself, A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, That, setting the how much before the how, Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech (Give, Cram us with all, "but count not me the herd. To which,,They call me what they will," (he said: But I was born too late: the fair new forms, That float about the threshold of an age, Like truths of Science waiting to be caughtCatch me who can, and make the catcher (crown'd Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. We sleep and wake and sleep, but all The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; And human things returning on themselves Move onward, leading up the golden year. "Ah, tho' the times, when some new (thought can bud, Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, And slow and sure comes up the golden year. When wealth no more shall rest in (mounded heaps, But smit with freer light shall slowly melt Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens Fly,happy happy sails and bear the Press; Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; Knit land to land, and blowing havenward With silks,and fruits,and spices,clear of toll, Enrich the markets of the golden year. "But we grow old. Ah! when shall all (men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, est And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year?" Thus far he flow'd and ended; whereupon Ah, folly! in mimic cadence answer'd (James ,,Ah, folly! for it lies so far away, Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 'Tis like the second world to us that live; 'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year." With that he struck his staff against therocks And broke it, - James, you know him,(old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods: O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis: Then added, all in heat: What stuff is this! Old writers push'd the happy season back,The more fools they, - we forward: dream (ers both; You most, that in an age: when every hour Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman,rapt Upon the teeming harvest,should not plunge His hand into the bag: but well I know That unto him who works, and feels he (works, This same grand year is ever at the doors." He spoke, and, high above, I heard them (blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo (flap And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. ULYSSES. IT little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren (crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I metê and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know (not me. I cannot rest from travel: 1 will drink That loved me, and alone; on shore, and (when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades And manners, climates, councils, govern(ments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; For ever and for ever when I move. Were all too little, and of one to me And this gray spirit yearning in desire This is my son, mine own Telemachus, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and (thought with me That ever with a frolic welcome took Moans round with many voices. Come, my (friends, Tis not too late to seek a newer world. |