From the meadow your walks have left so sweet To the woody hollows in which we meet The slender acacia would not shake One long milk-bloom on the tree; The white lake-blossom fell into the lake, The lilies and roses were all awake, They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun. There has fallen a spendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near'; The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear '; And the lily whispers, 'I wait.' She is coming, my own, my sweet; Lord Tennyson CCCLXVI In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. It is the little rift within the lute, The little rift within the lover's lute, It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all. Lord Tennyson CCCLXVII The year 's at the spring, The hill-side 's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail 's on the thorn: God 's in his heaven All 's right with the world! R. Browning CCCLXVIII Give her but a least excuse to love me! When-where How can this arm establish her above me, There already, to eternally reprove me? ('Hist!' said Kate the queen; But. 'Oh'-cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "Tis only a page that carols unseen, 'Crumbling your hounds their messes!') Is she wronged?—To the rescue of her honour, Is she poor?-What costs it to be styled a donor? But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! ('Nay, list!'-bade Kate the queen; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, Day. CCCLXIX R. Browning Faster and more fast, O'er night's brim, day boils at last : Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim For not a froth-flake touched the rim Of yonder gap in the solid gray Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world. CCCLXX R. Browning THE LOST LEADER Just for a handful of silver he left us, Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, We shall march prospering, not thro' his pres ence; Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre; Deeds will be done,-while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him,—strike gallantly, Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne! R. Browning CCCLXXI HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD Oh, to be in England now that April's there. And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, CCCLXXII HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-West died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest North-East distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and grey; |