His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play, By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night, The while I dance amid the tedded hay Or lies the purple evening on the bay Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees, Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears. But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed Makes the cock shrilly on the rain-storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice re-measures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures The things of Nature utter; birds or trees Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, Or, when the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. COLERIDGE. [FROM Fairy. 66 Ο A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."] VER hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, In those freckles live their savours: SHAKESPEARE. CIRCUMSTANCE. WO children in two neighbour villages Two strangers meeting at a festival; leas; Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall; Wash'd with still rains and daisy-blossomèd; THE SANDS O' DEE. 66 I. MARY, and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, And all alone went she. II. The creeping tide came up along the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the landAnd never home came she. III. Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair ?— O' drowned maiden's hair, Above the nets at sea. Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, IV. They row'd her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home, Across the sands o' Dee. CHARLES KINGSLEY. Μ' ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. I. Y 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, But being too happy in thy happiness,- Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song and sun-burnt mirth! That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: III. 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, Where youth grows pale and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, IV. 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, 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. V. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, VI. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— VII. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! |