"Ah, folly! 66 Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 'T were all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year." With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it, ― James, you know him, -old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods, O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis : Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this! Old writers push'd the happy season back, The more fools they, we forward: dreamers both : He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast ULYSSES. T little profits that an idle king, IT By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life Little remains but every hour is saved : From that eternal silence, something more, And this gray spirit yearning in desire Meet adoration to my household gods, There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail : There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, me That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Push off, and sitting well in order smite It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, We are not now that strength which in old days Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will LOCKSLEY HALL. ‘OMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn : COMRA Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. |