And sweet shall your welcome bc: We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words: O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten Runs up the ridged sea. Who can light on as happy a shore THE DESERTED HOUSE. LIFE and Thought have gone away Leaving door and windows wide: Careless tenants they! 11. All within is dark as night: III. Close the door, the shutters close, Cr thro' the windows we shall see The nakedness and vacancy Of the dark deserted house. IV. Come away: no more of mirth Is here or merry-maling sound. The house was builded of the earth, And shall fall again to ground. V. Come away for Life and Thought But in a city glorious A great and distant city-have bought A mansion incorruptible. Would they could have stayed with us! THE DYING SWAN. I. Ta plain was grassy, wild and bare, Wide, wild, and open to the air, Which had built up everywhere An under-roof of doleful gray. And loudly did lament. And took the reed-tops as it went. II. Some blue peaks in the distance rose, And white against the cold-white sky, Shone out their crowning snows, One willow over the river wept, And shook the wave as the wind did sigh; Above in the wind was the swallow, Chasing itself at its own wild will, And far thro' the marish green and still The tangled water-courses slept, Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. III The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow at first to the ear Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; And the tumult of their acclaim is roll'd Thro' the open gates of the city afar, To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star. And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds, And the willow-branches hoar and dank, And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds, And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank, And the silvery marish-flowers that throng The desolate creeks and pools among, Were flooded over with eddying song. SONNET TO J. M. K. My hope and heart is with thee-tho wilt be A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest To scare church-harpies from the master's feast; Our dusted velvets have much need of thee: Thou art no sabbath-drawler of old saws, Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily; But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy To embattail and to wall about thy cause With iron-worded proof, hating to hark The humming of the drowsy pulpitdrone Half God's good sabbath, while the worn-out clerk Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark. THE LADY OF SIIALOTT. ON either side the river lie To many-tower'd Camelot; The island of Shalott. Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Thro' the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot. The Lady of Shalott. Skimming down to Camelot : |