If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? With silence and tears. CXCI Lord Byron HAPPY INSENSIBILITY IN a Decem Na drear-nighted December Thy branches ne'er remember The north cannot undo them In a drear-nighted December But with a sweet forgetting They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time. Ah would 't were so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Nor numbéd sense to steal it- CXCII HERE shall the lover rest WHER Whom the fates sever From his true maiden's breast Parted for ever? Where, through groves deep and high Sounds the far billow, Where early violets die Under the willow. Eleu loro Soft shall be his pillow. There, through the summer day Scarce are boughs waving; Parted for ever, Never again to wake Never, O never! Eleu loro Never, O never! Where shall the traitor rest, He, the deceiver, Who could win maiden's breast, Ruin, and leave her? In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying; Eleu loro There shall he be lying. Her wing shall the eagle flap His warm blood the wolf shall lap By his grave ever; Never, O never! Eleu loro Never, O never! Sir W. Scott CXCIII LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 6 O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, The sedge has wither'd from the lake, 'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. 'I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.' 'I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful - 'I made a garland for her head, 'I set her on my pacing steed And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A fairy's song. 'She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said "I love thee true." 'She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. 'And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd- Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side. 'I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried — "La belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!" "I saw their starved lips in the gloam With horrid warning gapéd wide, And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side. 'And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake And no birds sing.' J. Keats 'A CXCIV THE ROVER WEARY lot is thine, fair maid, To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, A doublet of the Lincoln green No more of me you knew No more of me you knew. 'The morn is merry June, I trow, The rose is budding fain; But she shall bloom in winter snow He turn'd his charger as he spake He gave the bridle-reins a shake, My Love! And adieu for evermore.' Sir W. Scott |