Love me for the house and grave,— And for something higher.
Thus, if thou wilt prove me, dear, Woman's love no fable,
I will love thee-half-a-year
As a man is able.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
T me one night the angry moon Suspended to a rim of cloud
Glared through the courses of the wind. Suddenly there my spirit bow'd And shrank into a fearful swoon That made me deaf and blind.
We sinn'd-we sin-is that a dream? We wake-there is no voice nor stir; Sin and repent from day to day, As though some reeking murderer Should dip his hand in a running stream, And lightly go his way.
Embrace me, fiends and wicked men, For I am of your crew. Draw back, Pure women, children with clear eyes. Let Scorn confess me on his rack,— Stretch'd down by force, uplooking then Into the solemn skies!
Singly we pass the gloomy gate;
Some robed in honour, full of
Who of themselves are not aware; Being fed with secret wickedness, And comforted with lies: my fate Moves fast; I shall come there.
All is so usual, hour by hour; Men's spirits are so lightly twirl'd By every little gust of sense;
Who lays to heart this common world? Who lays to heart the Ruling Power, Just, infinite, intense-?
Thou wilt not frown, O God. Yet we Escape not thy transcendent law; It reigns within us and without. What earthly vision never saw Man's naked soul may suddenly see,. Dreadful, past thought or doubt.
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.
ROM you I have been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew,
Nor did I wonder at the lilies' white, Nor praise the deep vermillion of the rose, They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those,— Yet seem'd it winter still; and, you away, As with your shadow I with these did play.
IGER, tiger, burning bright In the forest of the night!
What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the ardour of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire- What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand form'd thy dread feet?
What the hammer, what the chain ? In what furnace was thy brain ? Did God smile his work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
(FROM THE SPANISH OF IGLESIAS.)
LEXIS calls me cruel;
The rifted crags that hold The gather'd ice of winter, He says, are not more cold.
When even the very blossoms Around the fountain's brim, And forest walks can witness The love I bear to him.
I would that I could utter My feelings without shame; And tell him how I love him,
Nor wrong my virgin fame.
Alas! to seize the moment When heart inclines to heart, And press a suit with passion, Is not a woman's part.
If no one comes to gather The roses where they stand, They fade among their foliage; They cannot seek his hand.
W. C. BRYANT.
(See the various Poems, the scene of which is laid upon the banks of the Yarrow; in particular the exquisite Ballad of Hamilton, beginning :
"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny Bride, Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome Marrow!")
ROM Stirling castle we had seen The mazy Forth unravell'd;
Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay, And with the Tweed had travell'd; And when we came to Clovenford, Then said my "winsome Marrow," "Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, And see the Braes of Yarrow."
"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town, Who have been buying, selling, Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own; Each maiden to her dwelling! On Yarrow's banks let herons feed, Hares couch, and rabbits burrow!
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