To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; To hear each other's whisper'd speech; Eating the Lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; Heap'd over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass. 6 Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change; Long labour unto aged breath, Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. Lotos] a plant in Homer's legend whose fruit produced dreaminess and killed desire of home. 7 But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, Beneath a heaven dark and holy, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill— To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro' the thick-twinèd vine— 8 The Lotos blooms below the barren peak : The Lotos blows by every winding creek : All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone : Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foamfountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: amaranth] a fabulous unfading flower. moly] the herb given to Ulysses as a charm against Circe's witchcraft, Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. 160 FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver : No more by thee my steps shall be, Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, Nowhere by thee my steps shall be, asphodel] the flower of the Elysian fields, But here will sigh thine alder tree, And here by thee will hum the bee, A thousand suns will stream on thee, For ever and for ever. Tennyson. 161 The Lake Isle of Innisfree I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake-water lapping with low sounds by the shore ; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core. W. B. Yeats. 162 To the Rev. F. D. Maurice COME, when no graver cares employ, For, being of that honest few, Should all our churchmen foam in spite Yet one lay-heart would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; Where, far from noise and smoke of town, All round a careless-order'd garden You'll have no scandal while you For groves of pine on either hand, Where, if below the milky steep And on thro' zones of light and shadow We might discuss the Northern sin Which made a selfish war begin; Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win : Or whether war's avenging rod Shall lash all Europe into blood; Till you should turn to dearer matters, Dear to the man that is dear to God; |