Owning her weakness,
Her evil behaviour,
And leaving, with meekness,
Her sins to her Saviour!
WHERE shall we make her grave?
Oh! where the wild-flowers wave
In the free air!
Where shower and singing-bird
'Midst the young leaves are heard—
There-lay her there!
Harsh was the world to her-
Now may sleep minister
Balm for each ill :
Low on sweet nature's breast,
Let the meek heart find rest,
Deep, deep and still!
Murmur, glad waters, by!
Faint gales, with happy sigh,
Come wandering o'er
That green and mossy bed,
Where, on a gentle head,
Storms beat no more!
What though for her in vain
Falls now the bright spring-rain,
Plays the soft wind?
Yet still, from where she lies,
Should blessed breathings rise,
Gracious and kind.
Therefore let song and dew
Thence in the heart renew
Life's vernal glow !
And o'er that holy earth
Scents of the violet's birth
Still come and go !
Where shower and singing-bird
'Midst the young leaves are heard—
There, lay her there!
Ode to Autumn.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers ;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them,-thou hast thy music too,
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Rash and undutiful:
Past all dishonour,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.
Still, for all slips of hers,
One of Eve's family-
Wipe those poor lips of hers
Oozing so clammily.
Loop up her tresses
Escaped from the comb, Her fair auburn tresses! Whilst wonderment guesses Where was her home?
Who was her father?
Who was her mother?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother?
Or was there a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet, than all other?
Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
O! it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.
Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly
Feelings had changed:
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence;
Even God's providence
Seeming estranged.
Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood, with amazement, Houseless by night.
The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver; But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery
Swift to be hurled-
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!
In she plunged boldly,
No matter how coldly
The rough river ran,
Over the brink of it,-
Picture it, think of it,
Dissolute Man!
Lave in it, drink of it,
Then, if you can!
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
Ere her limbs frigidly
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, kindly,
Smooth, and compose them;
And her eyes, close them,
Staring so blindly!
Dreadfully staring
Through muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.
Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely
Cold inhumanity
Burning insanity
Into her rest.
Cross her hands humbly
As if praying dumbly,
Over her breast!
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the year
On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
The chill rain is falling, the night-worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling;
Come, months, come away;
Put on white, black, and grey;
Let your light sisters play-
Ye, follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.
THAT time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold:
Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away;
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
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