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Father, twinkle not thy stedfast sight;

Kingdoms lapse, and climates change, and races die;
Honour comes with mystery;

Hoarded wisdom brings delight.

Number, tell them over and number

How many the mystic fruit-tree holds,

Lest the redcombed dragon slumber

Rolled together in purple folds.

Look to him, father, lest he wink, and the golden apple be

stol'n away,

For his ancient heart is drunk with overwatchings night and day,

Round about the hallowed fruit-tree curled

Sing away, sing aloud evermore in the wind, without stop,
Lest his scaled eyelid drop,

For he is older than the world.
If he waken, we waken,
Rapidly levelling eager eyes.
If he sleep, we sleep,

Dropping the eyelid over the eyes
If the golden apple be taken
The world will be overwise.

Five links, a golden chain, are we,
Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three,
Bound about the golden tree.

III

Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, night and day, Lest the old wound of the world be healed,

The glory unsealed,

The golden apple stol'n away,

And the ancient secret revealed.

Look from west to east along:

Father, old Himala weakens, Caucasus is bold and strong. Wandering waters unto wandering waters call;

Let them clash together, foam and fall.

Out of watchings, out of wiles,

Comes the bliss of secret smiles.

All things are not told to all.

Half-round the mantling night is drawn,

Purplefringed with even and dawn.

Hesper hateth Phosphor, evening hateth morn.

IV

Every flower and every fruit the redolent breath
Of this warm seawind ripeneth,

Arching the billow in his sleep;
But the landwind wandereth,
Broken by the highland-steep,

Two streams upon the violet deep:
For the western sun and the western star,
And the low west wind, breathing afar,
The end of day and beginning of night
Make the apple holy and bright ;

Holy and bright, round and full, bright and blest,
Mellowed in a land of rest;

Watch it warily day and night;
All good things are in the west.
Till midnoon the cool east light

Is shut out by the round of the tall hillbrow;
But when the fullfaced sunset yellowly
Stays on the flowering arch of the bough,
The luscious fruitage clustereth mellowly,
Goldenkernelled, goldencored,
Sunset-ripened above on the tree.

The world is wasted with fire and sword,
But the apple of gold hangs over the sea,
Five links, a golden chain, are we,
Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three,
Daughters three,

Bound about

All round about

The gnarlèd bole of the charmed tree.

The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit, Guard it well, guard it warily,

Watch it warily,

Singing airily,

Standing about the charmèd root.

(1833)

LXXXI

THE LOTOS-EATERS

"COURAGE!" he said, and pointed toward the land, "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." In the afternoon they came unto a land,

In which it seemed always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow

From

Three silent land: far off, three mountain-tops,

pinnacles of aged snow,

Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West thro' mountain clefts the dále
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
de
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Father-land,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more;"
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

CHORIC SONG

I

THERE is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; .

Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep,

And thro' the moss the ivies creep,

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

2

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown:

Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,

"There is no joy but calm!"

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

3

Lo! in the middle of the wood,

The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.

All its allotted length of days,

The flower ripens in its place,

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

4

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why

Should life all labour be?

Let us alone.

And in a little
Let us alone.

Time driveth onward fast,
while our lips are dumb.
What is it that will last?

All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

5

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,

With half-shut eyes ever to seem

Falling asleep in a half-dream!

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech;

Eating the Lotos day by day,

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy

Heap'd over with a mound of grass,

Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!

6

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives

And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold:
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten-years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle ?
Let what is broken so remain.

The Gods are hard to reconcile :
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,

Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.

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