Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; Mænad] mad priestess of Bacchus. The impulse of thy strength, only less free The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, L Shelley. 147 Ode on a Grecian Urn I THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness, A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme : 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 ? II Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 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! Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Tempe]*. 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. IV Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. V O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 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. brede] braid, embroidery, band of ornament. Keats. 148 Farewell Look thy last on all things lovely, Seal thy sense in deathly slumber Till to delight Thou have paid thy utmost blessing; Walter de la Mare. 149 BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! 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, 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. Tennyson. |