O beautiful! O Nature's child!
'Twas thence you hailed the platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell!
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Thence learn'd you that heroic measure..
HERE is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn? Where may the grave of that good man be?- By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree! The oak that in summer was sweet to hear, And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year, And whistled and roared in the winter alone, Is gone, and the birch in its stead is grown.- The Knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust ;
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
EAR, sweet spirit, hear the spell, Lest a blacker charm compel! So shall the midnight breezes swell With thy deep long-lingering knell.
And at evening evermore,
In a chapel on the shore,
Shall the chaunter, sad and saintly, Yellow tapers burning faintly, Doleful masses chaunt for thee, Miserere Domine!
Hark! the cadence dies away
On the quiet moonlight sea: The boatmen rest their oars and say, Miserere Domine!
SUNNY shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted: And poised therein a bird so bold- Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted! He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled Within that shaft of sunny mist;
His eyes of fire, his beak of gold, All else of amethyst!
And thus he sang: "Adieu! adieu! Love's dreams prove seldom true. The blossoms, they make no delay : The sparkling dew-drops will not stay. Sweet month of May,
We must away; Far, far away!
To day to day!"
P, up! ye dames, ye lasses gay! To the meadows trip away.
'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn, And scare the small birds from the corn.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
Leave the hearth and leave the house To the cricket and the mouse: Find grannam out a sunny seat, With babe and lambkin at her feet. Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
HE cloud doth gather, the greenwood roar, The damsel paces along the shore;
The billows they tumble with might, with might;
And she flings out her voice to the darksome night; Her bosom is swelling with sorrow;
The world it is empty, the heart will die, There's nothing to wish for beneath the sky : Thou Holy One, call thy child away! I've lived and loved, and that was to-day- Make ready my grave-clothes to-morrow.
F late, in one of those most weary hours, When life seems emptied of all genial powers, A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known May bless his happy lot, I sate alone; And, from the numbing spell to win relief, Call'd on the past for thought of glee or grief. In vain! bereft alike of grief and glee, I sate and cow'r'd o'er my own vacancy ! And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache, Which, all else slumb'ring, seem'd alone to wake; O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal, And soothe by silence what words cannot heal,
I but half saw that quiet hand of thine Place on my desk this exquisite design, Boccaccio's Garden and its faery,
The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry! An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm, Framed in the silent poesy of form. Like flocks adown a newly-bathed steep Emerging from a mist; or like a stream Of music soft that not dispels the sleep,
But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might The picture stole upon my inward sight.
A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest, As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast. And one by one (I know not whence) were brought All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost
Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost;
Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above, Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love; Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan
Of manhood, musing what and whence is man! Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves; Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids, That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades; Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast ; Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest, Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array, To high-church pacing on the great saint's day. And many a verse which to myself I sang, That woke the tear yet stole away the pang, Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd. And last, a matron now, of sober mien,
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