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All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder :
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,

And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;

And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full,
You never would hear it; your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.

(1853)

XXXI

NOTHING WILL DIE

WHEN will the stream be aweary of flowing
Under my eye?

When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky?

When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?
When will the heart be aweary of beating?
And nature die?
Never, oh! never, nothing will die;

The stream flows,

The wind blows,

The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.

Nothing will die ;

All things will change

Through eternity.

'Tis the world's winter;
Autumn and summer
Are gone long ago.
Earth is dry to the centre,
But spring a new comer-
A spring rich and strange,

Shall make the winds blow

Round and round,

Through and through,

Here and there,

Till the air

And the ground

Shall be filled with life anew.

The world was never made;

It will change, but it will not fade.
So let the wind range;

For even and morn
Ever will be

Through eternity.

Nothing was born;

Nothing will die ;

All things will change.

(1830)

XXXII

ALL THINGS WILL DIE

CLEARLY the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;

Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
Over the sky.

One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
Full merrily;

Yet all things must die.

The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat ;
For all things must die.

All things must die.

Spring will come never more.
Oh! vanity!

Death waits at the door.

See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are called-we must go.

Laid low, very low,

In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.

Oh! misery!

Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,

T

(1830)

The red cheek paling,

The strong limbs failing;

Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.

Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls farewell.

The old earth

Had a birth,

As all men know,

Long ago.

And the old earth must die.

So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn

Ye will never see
Through eternity.

All things were born.

Ye will come never more,

For all things must die.

XXXIII

HERO TO LEANDER

Oн go not yet, my love,

The night is dark and vast;

The white moon is hid in her heaven above,

And the waves climb high and fast.

Oh! kiss me, kiss me, once again,

Lest thy kiss should be the last.

Oh kiss me ere we part;

Grow closer to my heart.

My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main.

Oh joy! O bliss of blisses!

My heart of hearts art thou. Come bathe me with thy kisses, My eyelids and my brow. Hark how the wild rain hisses,

And the loud sea roars below.

Thy heart beats through thy rosy limbs,
So gladly doth it stir;

Thine eye in drops of gladness swims.
I have bathed thee with the pleasant myrrh;
Thy locks are dripping balm ;

Thou shalt not wander hence to-night,
I'll stay thee with my kisses.
To-night the roaring brine

Will rend thy golden tresses;
The ocean with the morrow light

Will be both blue and calm ;

And the billow will embrace thee with a kiss as soft as mine.

No western odours wander

On the black and moaning sea,
And when thou art dead, Leander,
My soul must follow thee !
Oh go not yet, my love,

Thy voice is sweet and low
The deep salt wave breaks in above
Those marble steps below.

The turretstairs are wet

That lead into the sea.

Leander! go not yet.

The pleasant stars have set :
Oh! go not, go not yet,

Or I will follow thee.

(1830)

XXXIV

THE MYSTIC

ANGELS have talked with him, and showed him thrones:
Ye knew him not: he was not one of ye,

Ye scorned him with an undiscerning scorn:
Ye could not read the marvel in his eye,

The still serene abstraction: he hath felt
The vanities of after and before;
Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart
The stern experiences of converse lives,
The linked woes of many a fiery change
Had purified, and chastened, and made free.
Always there stood before him, night and day,
Of wayward vary colored circumstance
The imperishable presences serene
Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound,
Dim shadows but unwaning presences
Fourfaced to four corners of the sky:
And yet again, three shadows, fronting one,
One forward, one respectant, three but one;

And yet again, again and evermore,

For the two first were not, but only seemed,
One shadow in the midst of a great light,
One reflex from eternity on time,
One mighty countenance of perfect calm,
Awful with most invariable eyes.

For him the silent congregated hours,
Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath
Severe and youthful brows, with shining eyes
Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light

Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all
Keen knowledges of low-embowèd eld)

Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud

Which droops low hung on either gate of life,
Both birth and death: he in the centre fixt,
Saw far on each side through the grated gates
Most pale and clear and lovely distances.
He often lying broad awake, and yet
Remaining from the body, and apart
In intellect and power and will, hath heard
Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things creeping to a day of doom.
How could ye know him? Ye were yet within
The narrower circle; he had wellnigh reached
The last, which with a region of white flame,
Pure without heat, into a larger air

Upburning, and an ether of black blue,
Investeth and ingirds all other lives.

(1830)

XXXV

THE DYING SWAN

I

THE plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air,
Which had built up everywhere

An under-roof of doleful gray.
With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,

And loudly did lament.
It was the middle of the day.
Ever the weary wind went on,

And took the reed-tops as it went.

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