Song of the Indian Maid
FROM 'ENDYMION'
O SORROW!
Why dost borrow
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?—
To give maiden blushes
To the white rose bushes? 5
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?—
To give the glow-worm light? 10
Or, on a moonless night,
To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea-spry?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow
The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?— 15
To give at evening pale
Unto the nightingale,
That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow 20
Heart's lightness from the merriment of May?—
A lover would not tread
A cowslip on the head,
Though he should dance from eve till peep of day—
Nor any drooping flower 25
Held sacred for thy bower,
Wherever he may sport himself and play.
To Sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind; 30
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her
And so leave her, 35
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a-weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept,—
And so I kept 40
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a-weeping: what enamour'd bride,
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds, 45
But hides and shrouds
Beneath dark palm-trees by a river side?
And as I sat, over the light blue hills
There came a noise of revellers: the rills
Into the wide stream came of purple hue— 50
'Twas Bacchus and his crew!
The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills
From kissing cymbals made a merry din—
'Twas Bacchus and his kin!
Like to a moving vintage down they came, 55
Crown'd with green leaves, and faces all on flame;
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,
To scare thee, Melancholy!
O then, O then, thou wast a simple name!
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly 60
By shepherds is forgotten, when in June
Tall chestnuts keep away the sun and moon:—
I rush'd into the folly!
Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, 65
With sidelong laughing;
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued
His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white
For Venus' pearly bite;
And near him rode Silenus on his ass, 70
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass
Tipsily quaffing.
'Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye,
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your bowers desolate, 75
Your lutes, and gentler fate?'—
'We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing,
A-conquering!
Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide:— 80
Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be
To our wild minstrelsy!'
'Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye,
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left 85
Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?'—
'For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,
And cold mushrooms;
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; 90
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth!
Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be
To our mad minstrelsy!'
Over wide streams and mountains great we went,
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, 95
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,
With Asian elephants:
Onward these myriads—with song and dance,
With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance,
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, 100
Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files,
Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil
Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil:
With toying oars and silken sails they glide,
Nor care for wind and tide. 105
Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes,
From rear to van they scour about the plains;
A three days' journey in a moment done;
And always, at the rising of the sun,
About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn, 110
On spleenful unicorn.
I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown
Before the vine-wreath crown!
I saw parch'd Abyssinia rouse and sing
To the silver cymbals' ring! 115
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce
Old Tartary the fierce!
The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearlèd hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans, 120
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale.
Into these regions came I, following him,
Sick-hearted, weary—so I took a whim
To stray away into these forests drear, 125
Alone, without a peer:
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.
Young Stranger!
I've been a ranger
In search of pleasure throughout every clime; 130
Alas! 'tis not for me!
Bewitch'd I sure must be,
To lose in grieving all my maiden prime.
Come then, Sorrow,
Sweetest Sorrow! 135
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast:
I thought to leave thee,
And deceive thee,
But now of all the world I love thee best.
There is not one, 140
No, no, not one
But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid;
Thou art her mother,
And her brother,
Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade. 145
Ode to a Nightingale
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Proven?al song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South! 15
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night, 35
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod. 60
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep? 80
Ode on a Grecian Urn
THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time
Sylvan historian
who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5
Of deities or mortals
or of both
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10
Heard melodies are sweet
but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore
ye soft pipes
play on;
Not to the sensual ear
but
more endear'd
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth
beneath the trees
thou canst not leave 15
Thy song
nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover
never
never canst thou kiss
Though winning near the goal—yet
do not grieve;
She cannot fade
though thou hast not thy bliss
For ever wilt thou love
and she be fair! 20
Ah
happy
happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves
nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And
happy melodist
unwearièd
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy
happy love! 25
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd
For ever panting
and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd
A burning forehead
and a parching tongue. 30
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar
O mysterious priest
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore
35
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel
Is emptied of its folk
this pious morn?
And
little town
thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul
to tell
Why thou art desolate
can e'er return. 40
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou
silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45
When old age shall this generation waste
Thou shalt remain
in midst of other woe
Than ours
a friend to man
to whom thou say'st
'Beauty is truth
truth beauty
—that is all
Ye know on earth
and all ye need to know.' 50
Ode to Psyche
O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conchèd ear:
Surely I dream'd to-day, or did I see 5
The wingèd Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couchèd side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof 10
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass; 15
Their arms embracèd, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoinèd by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: 20
The wingèd boy I knew;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
His Psyche true!
O latest-born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy! 25
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,
Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
Nor altar heap'd with flowers;
Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan 30
Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain-swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. 35
O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retired 40
From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours; 45
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swingèd censer teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane 50
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees
Fledge the wild-ridgèd mountains steep by steep; 55
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, 60
With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought can win, 65
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!
To Autumn
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees
5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd
and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more
later flowers for the bees
Until they think warm days will never cease
10
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep
Drowsed with the fume of poppies
while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cider-press
with patient look
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay
where are they?
Think not of them
thou hast thy music too
—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows
borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Ode on Melancholy
NO
no! go not to Lethe
neither twist
Wolf's-bane
tight-rooted
for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
By nightshade
ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries
5
Nor let the beetle
nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche
nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. 10
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose
15
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave
Or on the wealth of globèd peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows
Emprison her soft hand
and let her rave
And feed deep
deep upon her peerless eyes. 20
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy
whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay
in the very temple of Delight 25
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 30
Fragment of an Ode to Maia
(Written on May-Day
1818)
MOTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymnèd on the shores of Bai??
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles 5
Seek as they once were sought
in Grecian isles
By bards who died content on pleasant sward
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O give me their old vigour! and unheard
Save of the quiet primrose
and the span 10
Of heaven
and few ears
Rounded by thee
my song should die away
Content as theirs
Rich in the simple worship of a day.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher's
Tragi-Comedy 'The Fair Maid of the Inn'
BARDS of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too
Doubled-lived in regions new?
Yes
and those of heaven commune 5
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another
in soft ease 10
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented
Where the daisies are rose-scented
And the rose herself has got 15
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless
trancèd thing
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth; 20
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.
Thus ye live on high
and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you 25
Teach us
here
the way to find you
Where your other souls are joying
Never slumber'd
never cloying.
Here
your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals
of their little week; 30
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us
every day
35
Wisdom
though fled far away.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too
Double-lived in regions new! 40
Fancy
EVER let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let wingèd Fancy wander 5
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use, 10
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then? 15
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the cakèd snow is shuffled 20
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad, 25
With a mind self-overawed,
Fancy, high-commission'd:—send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost; 30
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heapèd Autumn's wealth, 35
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear; 40
Rustle of the reapèd corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment—hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw, 45
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; 50
Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearlèd with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the fieldmouse peep 55
Meagre from its cellèd sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, 60
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the beehive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering 65
While the autumn breezes sing.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where 's the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gazed at? Where 's the maid 70
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where 's the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where 's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where 's the voice, however soft, 75
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, wingèd Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind: 80
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone 85
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet,
And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash; 90
Quickly break her prison-string,
And such joys as these she'll bring.—
Let the wingèd Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
Stanzas
IN a drear-nighted December
Too happy
happy tree
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
5
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December
Too happy
happy brook
10
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting
They stay their crystal fretting
Never
never petting 15
About the frozen time.
Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passèd joy? 20
To know the change and feel it
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbèd sense to steal it
Was never said in rhyme.
La Belle Dame sans Merci
'O WHAT can ail thee
knight-at-arms
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake
And no birds sing.
'O what can ail thee
knight-at-arms
5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest 's done.
'I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew; 10
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.'
'I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful—a faery's child
Her hair was long
her foot was light
15
And her eyes were wild.
'I made a garland for her head
And bracelets too
and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love
And made sweet moan. 20
'I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long
For sideways would she lean
and sing
A faery's song.
'She found me roots of relish sweet
25
And honey wild and manna dew
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true!
'She took me to her elfin grot
And there she wept and sigh'd fill sore; 30
And there I shut her wild
wild eyes
With kisses four.
'And there she lullèd me asleep
And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd 35
On the cold hill's side.
'I saw pale kings and princes too
Pale warriors
death-pale were they all;
They cried—"La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!" 40
'I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapèd wide
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
'And this is why I sojourn here 45
Alone and palely loitering
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake
And no birds sing.'
On first looking into Chapman's Homer
MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 5
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken; 10
Or like stout Cortez
when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent
upon a peak in Darien.
When I have Fears that I may cease to be
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain
Before high pil`d books
in charact'ry
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold
upon the night's starr'd face
5
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows
with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel
fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more
10
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone
and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
To Sleep
O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes
embower'd from the light
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee
close
5
In midst of this thine hymn
my willing eyes
Or wait the amen
ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me
or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow
breeding many woes; 10
Save me from curious conscience
that still lords
Its strength for darkness
burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.
Last Sonnet
BRIGHT Star!
would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching
with eternal lids apart
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite
The moving waters at their priest-like task 5
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast
still unchangeable
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast
10
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest
Still
still to hear her tender-taken breath
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.