The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest, Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts, before which our mortal nature But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us- cherish — and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour Nor man nor boy Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence, in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither — And see the children sport upon the shore, Then, sing ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We, in thought, will join your throng Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; Strength in what remains behind, Which having been must ever be, In the faith that looks through death, And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; To live beneath your more habitual sway; I love the brooks which down their channels fret The clouds that gather round the setting sun That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; CCLXXXVIII MUSIC, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, P. B. Shelley NOTES Summary of Book First HE Elizabethan Poetry, as it is rather vaguely termed, forms ΤΗ the substance of this Book, which contains pieces from Wyat under Henry VIII to Shakespeare midway through the reign of James I, and Drummond who carried on the early manner to a still later period. There is here a wide range of style; from simplicity expressed in a language hardly yet broken in to verse, through the pastoral fancies and Italian conceits of the strictly Elizabethan time, -to the passionate reality of Shakespeare: yet a general uniformity of tone prevails. Few readers can fail to observe the natural sweetness of the verse, the single-hearted straightforwardness of the thoughts: - nor less, the limitation of subject to the many phases of one passion, which then characterized our lyrical poetry, unless when, as with Drummond and Shakespeare, the 'purple light of Love' is tempered by a spirit of sterner reflection. It should be observed that this and the following Summaries apply in the main to the Collection here presented, in which (besides its restriction to Lyrical Poetry) a strictly representative or historical Anthology has not been aimed at. Great Excellence, in human art as in human character, has from the beginning of things been even more uniform than Mediocrity, by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature:-and so far as the standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout:- something neither modern nor ancient, but true in all ages, and like the works of Creation, perfect as on the first day. |