Nor Hawthorne's manse, with ancient moss As this calm haven, where the leaves are bespread, Nor Irving's hollow, is with rest so rife shed Round Indian summers of a golden life. Sir Lewis Morris Calling at its own hour On folded leaf and flower, Calling the lamb, the lark, the bee, On that hillside I know which scans the vale, Calling the crocus and anemone, Beneath the thick yews' shade, For shelter when the rains and winds pre vail. It cannot be the eye Is blinded when we die, So that we know no more at all The dawns increase, the evenings fall ; Shut up within a mouldering chest of wood Asleep, and careless of our children's good. Shall I not feel the spring, The yearly resurrection of the earth, With the fair throbbings and alarms of birth, Or should my children's tread And in a marble urn Through Sabbath twilights, when the hymns My ashes rest by my beloved dead, Oh, lonely loveless voice, what dost thou here In the deep silence of the fading year? Thus do I read answer of thy song: "I sang when winds blew chilly all day long; I I sang because hope came and joy was near, sang a little while, I made good cheer; In summer's cloudless day My music died away ; But now the hope and glory of the year Are dead and gone, a little while I sing Songs of regret for days no longer here, And touch'd with presage of the far-off Spring." Is this the meaning of thy note, fair bird? High-soaring joy and melancholy pain? Belated from thy throat 66 Regret," is what it sings, "regret, regret! The dear days pass, but are not wholly gone. In praise of those I let my song go on; "T is sweeter to remember than forget." |