So she goes by him attended, Lay betwixt his home and hers; Built for pleasure and for state, All he shows her makes him dearer: Evermore she seems to gaze On that cottage growing nearer, Where they twain will spend their days. O but she will love him truly! He shall have a cheerful home; She will order all things duly, When beneath his roof they come. Thus her heart rejoices greatly, Till a gateway she discerns With armorial bearings stately, And beneath the gate she turns; Sees a mansion more majestic Than all those she saw before; Bows before him at the door. Her sweet face from brow to chin: And he cheer'd her soul with love. Tho' at times her spirit sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meekness To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he, And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady, And the people loved her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her, And perplex'd her, night and morn, With the burthen of an honour Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, And she murmur'd, "Oh, that he And he look'd at her and said, Bore to earth her body, drest SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUI- A FRAGMENT. LIKE souls that balance joy and pain, In crystal vapour everywhere Above the teeming ground. She seem'd a part of joyous Spring; Now on some twisted ivy-net, When all the glimmering moorland rings As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, The rein wilh dainty finger-tips, A FAREWELL. No more by thee my steps shall be, No where by thee my steps shall be, But here will sigh thine alder tree, A thousand suns will stream on thee, THE BEGGAR MAID. HER arms across her breast she laid; She was more fair than words can say: Bare-footed came the beggar maid Before the king Cophetua. In robe and crown the king stept down, To meet and greet her on her way; ,,It is no wonder," said the lords, ,,She is more beautiful than day." As shinesthe moon in clouded skies, She in her poor attire was seen: One praised her ancles, one her eyes, One her dark hair and lovesome mien. So sweet a face, such angel grace, In all that land had never been: Cophetua sware a royal oath: This beggar maid shall be my queen!" THE VISION OF SIN. I HAD a vision when the night was late; But that his heavy rider kept him down. Suffused them, sitting, lying,languid shapes, By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and (piles of grapes. II. Then methought I heard a mellow sound, As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale, The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd (and palpitated, Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound, Flutter'd beadlong from the sky. III. And then I look'd up toward a mountain(tract, That girt the region with high cliff and lawn A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold, And warn'd that madman ere it grew toolate: But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was (broken, When that cold vapour touch'd the palace (gate, And link'd again I saw within my head " IV. Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin! Here is custom come your way; Take my brute, and lead him in, Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay. Bitter barmaid, waning fast! See that sheets are on my bed; What! the flower of life is past: It is long before you wed. Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, At the Dragon on the heath! Let us have a quiet hour, Let us hob-and-nob with Death. "I am old, but let me drink; Bring me spices, bring me wine, I remember, when I think, That my youth was half divine. Wine is good for shrivell'd lips, When a blanket wraps the day, When the rotten woodland drips, And the leaf is stamp'd in clay. Sit thee down, and have no shame, Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee: What care I for any name? What for order or degree? Let me screw thee up a peg: Let me loose thy tongue with wine: Callest thou that thing a leg? Which is thinnest? thine or mine? Thou shalt not be saved by works: Thou hast been a sinner too: Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks, Empty scarecrows, I and you!" Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn: Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born. We are men of ruin'd blood; Therefore comes it we are wise. Fish are we that love the mud, Rising to no fancy-flies. "Name and fame! to fly sublime Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools, Is to be the ball of Time, Bandied by the hands of fools, "Friendship!- -to be two in oneLet the canting liar pack! Well I know, when I am gone, How she mouths behind my "Virtue! to be good and justEvery heart, when sifted well, Is a clot of warmer dust, back. Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell. ,,O! we two as well can look Whited thought and cleanly life As the priest, above his book Leering at his neighbour's wife. ,,Fill the cup, and fill the can: Have a rouse before the morn: Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born. ,,Drink, and let the parties rave: They are fill'd with idle spleen; Rising, falling, like a wave, For they know not what they mean. He that roars for liberty Faster binds a tyrant's power: Forces on the freer hour. And is lightly laid again. In her left a human head. ,,No, I love not what is new; She is of an ancient house; And I think we know the hue Of that cap upon her brows. Let her go! her thirst she slakes Where the bloody conduit runs: Then her sweetest meal she makes On the first-born of her sons. "Drink to lofty hopes that cool Visions of a perfect State : Drink we, last, the public fool, Frantic love and frantic hate. ,,Chant me now some wicked stave, Till thy drooping courage rise, And the glow-worm of the grave Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes. Fear not thou to loose thy tongue Set thy hoary fancies free; What is loathsome to the young Savours well to thee and me. " Change, reverting to the years, When thy nerves could understand What there is in loving tears, And the warmth of hand in hand. "Tell me tales of thy first love April hopes, the fools of chance; The chap-fallen circle spreads: Hollow hearts and emply heads! In your eye nor yet your lip: Joints of cunning workmanship. ,Lo! God's likeness- the ground-planNeither modell'd, glazed, or framed: Buss me, thou rough sketch of man, Far too naked to be shamed! Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, While we keep a little breath! Drink to heavy Ignorance! Hob-and-nob with brother Death! And my mockeries of the world. V. The voice graw faint: there came a further (change: Once more uprose the mystic mountain(range: Below were men and horses pierced with (worms, And slowly quickening into lower forms; By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of (dross, Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with (moss. Then some one spake: Behold! it was a (crime Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time." Another said: The crime of sense became A little grain of conscience made him sour." But in a tongue no man could understand; COME not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst (not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by. Child, if it were thine error or thy crime Passon, weak heart, and leave me where I lie: THE EAGLE. FRAGMENT. HE clasps the crag with hooked hands; Move eastward, happy earth, and leave Yon orange sunset waning slow: From fringes of the faded eve, O, happy planet, eastward go; Till over thy dark shoulder glow Thy silver sister-world, and rise To glass herself in dewy eyes That watch me from the glen below. Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne, Dip forward under starry light, And move me to my mariage-morn, And round again to happy night. 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. THE POET'S SONG. THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose, He pass'd by the down and out of the street A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat, And he sat him down in a lonely place, And chanted a melody loud and sweet, That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, And the lark drop down at his feet. The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, The wild hawk stood with the down on his (beak, And stared, with his foot on the prey, And the nightingale thought, I have sung (many songs, But never a one so gay, For he sings of what the world will be MAUD. I. I. I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, II. For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found, His who had given me life O father! O God! was it well? III. Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail'd, IV. I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd |