For lo! the Sea that fleets about the land,
And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
Music and measure both doth understand;
For his great crystal eye is always cast
Up to the Moon, and on her fixèd fast;
And as she danceth in her pallid sphere,
So danceth he about the centre here.
Sometimes his proud green waves in order set
One after other flow unto the shore,
Which when they have with many kisses wet,
They ebb away in order as before;
And, to make known his courtly love the more,
He oft doth lay aside his three-forked mace,
And with his arms the timorous Earth embrace.
See how those flowers that have sweet beauty too,
(The only jewel that the Earth doth wear
When the young Sun in bravery her doth woo)
As oft as they the whistling wind do hear,
Do wave their tender bodies here and there;
And though their dance no perfect measure is,
Yet oftentimes their music makes them kiss.
What makes the vine about the elm to dance
With turnings, windings, and embracements round?
What makes the lodestone to the north advance
His subtle point as if from thence he found
His chief attracting virtue to redound?
Kind Nature first doth cause all things to love;
Love makes them dance and in just order move.
Lo! this is Dancing's true nobility:
Dancing, the child of Music and of Love;
Dancing, itself both love and harmony,
Where all agree and all in order move :
Dancing, the art that all arts do approve :
The fair charácter of the world's consent,
The Heavens' true figure, and th' Earth's ornament.
Is it the dusk, with the pale moon crowned,
That fills the silence, or some strange bliss
Half pain? The dusk, or a vague delight
And a vaguer sorrow that make no sound,
But fold me close as a mother's kiss
Where I lean and look over the lake to-night?
The day's hard limit of earth and heaven
Is dimmed, and the blue is a holier gray :
For the night hath woven a luminous pall
Of the moon and the mist, and hues are given
More shadowy fair than the hues of day
Where the folds of its softness gleaming fall.
It grows till the lake is the mystic tide
Of poet and seer, and I look from its edge,
From the desolate margin of Time and Dreams,
To a shore's dim beauty by souls descried
Through the mists of half-dropped tears: a pledge
From the heavenly world to the world that seems.
O vastness hid in a poor hour's space!
O Earth, new-born with a birth divine!
Methinks, if the spell could last, even I
Should drain the cup and achieve the grace,
And speak to the soul that speaks to mine
From the night, and the depth, and the infinite
sky!
It will pass, too soon, with the common day:
Earth will be solid, the waters blue;
I shall smile at the fancies that stirred my brain
As I leaned o'er the boat's edge into the gray;
And sense and seeming will forge anew
Their chains; and life will be prose again.
But a time will come, when the tumult dies,
And memory stirs 'twixt the dark and light,
That my soul will awake to the wakening stream,
Or a touch, or the look in a child's soft eyes,
And know of a truth, as it knows to-night,
That this was the vision; the rest, a dream.
AMID the ice of the far Northern Sea,
A star about the Arctic circle may
Than ours yield clearer light, yet that but shall
Serve at the frozen pilot's funeral.
Thou, brightest constellation! to this main
Which all we sinners traffic on, didst deign
The bounty of thy fire, which with so clear
And constant beams did our frail vessels steer
That safely we, what storm so e'er bore sway,
Passed o'er the rugged alps of th' angry sea.
W. HABINGTON
CUPID and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple on his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes:
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.1
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear
That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
1 He had already written the Nativity Ode, Vacation Exercise, etc., but regarded these earlier efforts as "harsh and crude." See Lycidas (Part II).
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Tow'rd which time leads me, and the will of
Heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Task-master's eye.
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
J. MILTON
YE flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!
1 i.e. All that matters is.
So in Hamlet: "the readiness 2 The original version.
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