Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems— How many a spirit then puts on the pinions Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast, More fleet than storms. The wide world shrinks below, When winter and despondency are past. . ... 88 To Meadows Shelley. YE have been fresh and green, Ye have been fill'd with flowers, And ye the walks have been Where maids have spent their hours. You have beheld how they With wicker arks did come To kiss and bear away The richer cowslips home. You've heard them sweetly sing, round] circular dance. DEEP in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, No further than to where his feet had stray'd, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bow'd head seem'd list'ning to the Earth, His ancient mother, for some comfort yet. It seem'd no force could wake him from his place; But there came one, who with a kindred hand Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low With reverence, though to one who knew it not. She was a Goddess of the infant world ; By her in stature the tall Amazon Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en Achilles by the hair and bent his neck; Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel. Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx, When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore. Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake II As when, upon a trancèd summer-night, Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Dream, and so dream all night without a stir, Save from one gradual solitary gust Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, As if the ebbing air had but one wave; So came these words and went; the while in tears Keats. 90 The Willow Leans now the fair willow, dreaming Amid her locks of green. In the driving snow she was parch'd and cold, And in midnight hath been Swept by blasts of the void night, Lash'd by the rains. Now of that wintry dark and bleak No memory remains. In mute desire she sways softly; Thrilling sap up-flows; She praises God in her beauty and grace, Whispers delight. And there flows 91 92 A delicate wind from the Southern seas, While the birds in her tresses make merry ; Burns the Sun in the skies. Walter de la Mare. Song The feathers of the willow And wild the clouded gleam. The thistle now is older, Dixon. I A SPIRIT haunts the year's last hours For at eventide, listening earnestly, Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers: Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. |