Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain— Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain : Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd ;- Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far away, Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag; Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree— There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space; Iron jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Mated with a squalid savage-what to me were sun or clime? I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; GODIVA. I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the To watch the three tall spires; and there The city's ancient legend into this Not only we, the latest seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, And loathed to see them overtax'd; but Did more, and underwent, and overcame, Their children, clamouring, 'If we pay, She sought her lord, and found him, where Made war upon each other for an hour, he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, all The hard condition; but that she would | Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep'd-but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, One after one but even then she gain'd Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, To meet her lord, she took the tax away And built herself an everlasting name. THE DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O LADY FLORA, let me speak: A pleasant hour has passed away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming-and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face, Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place And order'd words asunder fly. THE SLEEPING PALACE. I. THE varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains, |