Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866] "WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING" So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, For the sword outwears its sheath, Though the night was made for loving, Yet we'll go no more a roving George Gordon Byron [1788-1824] SONG SING the old song, amid the sounds dispersing She will not hear you, in her turrets nursing High thoughts, too high to mate with mortal songBend o'er her, gentle Heaven, but do not claim her! In twilight caves, and secret lonelinesses, She shades the bloom of her unearthly days; And the soft winds alone have power to woo her: Far off we catch the dark gleam of her tresses; The Question That Spirit charged to follow and defend her,- 867 And she, perhaps, is sad, hearing his sighing: THE QUESTION I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, There grew pied wind-flowers and violets; Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets— Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-colored may, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray; And flowers, azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge Methought that of these visionary flowers Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] THE WANDERER LOVE comes back to his vacant dwelling,- With his great eyes sad, and his bosom swelling. He makes as though in our arms repelling, Ah, who shall keep us from over-spelling E'en as we doubt in our hearts once more, Austin Dobson [1840 EGYPTIAN SERENADE SING again the song you sung The Water Lady Sing the song, and o'er and o'er 869 George William Curtis [1824-1892] THE WATER LADY ALAS, the moon should ever beam I stayed awhile, to see her throw I stayed a little while to view Her cheek, that wore, in place of red, I stayed to watch, a little space, And still I stayed a little more: I throw my flowers from the shore, I know my life will fade away, Thomas Hood (1799-1845] "TRIPPING DOWN THE FIELD-PATH" TRIPPING down the field-path, Early in the morn, There I met my own love 'Midst the golden corn; Backward from her face; Little time for speaking Had she, for the wind, Bonnet, scarf, or ribbon, Still some sweet improvement Won me, one by one! Seemed the breeze of morn, Blowing thus between us, 'Midst the golden corn. What we sought to bind. Oh! that autumn morning In my heart it beams, With its dream of dreams: Still, like waters flowing In the ocean shell, In my spirit dwell; Lost is now to me! Charles Swain [1801-1874] |