Ah, what begetteth all this storm of bliss But Death himself, who, crying solemnly, E'en from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness, Bids us "Rejoice! lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by. Stretch forth your open hands, and, while ye live, Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give"? 21 3 MAY O LOVE, this morn when the sweet nightingale Ere to the risen sun the bells 'gan ring? For then methought the Lord of Love went by To take possession of his flowery throne, Ringed round with maids, and youths, and minstrelsy; A little while I sighed to find him gone, A little while the dawning was alone, And the light gathered; then I held my breath, And shuddered at the sight of Eld and Death. 14 7 Alas! Love passed me in the twilight dun, was strong, As shivering, twixt the trees they stole along; None noted aught their noiseless passing by, The world had quite forgotten it must die. 21 4 OCTOBER O LOVE, turn from the unchanging sea, and gaze Down these grey slopes upon the year grown old, A-dying mid the autumn-scented haze," That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold, Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infold Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead, Wrought in dead days for men a long while dead. Come down, O love; may not our hands still meet. Since still we live to-day, forgetting June, Forgetting May, deeming October sweet- -O hearken, hearken! through the afternoon, 7 The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune! Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath, Too satiate of life to strive with death. And we too will it not be soft and kind, That rest from life, from patience and from pain, That rest from bliss we know not when we find. That rest from Love which ne'er the end can gain? 14 -Hark, how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane! Look up, love!-ah, cling close and never move! How can I have enough of life and love? 21 1868-70. William Morris. THE GREEN LINNET BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed In this sequestered nook how sweet And birds and flowers once more to greet, 8 One have I marked, the happiest guest In joy of voice and pinion! While birds, and butterflies, and flowers, A Life, a Presence like the Air, Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, There! where the flutter of his wings My dazzled sight he oft deceives, 16 24 32 As if by that exulting strain He mocked and treated with disdain The voiceless Form he chose to feign, While fluttering in the bushes. 1803. 1807. 40 William Wordsworth. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 7 |