Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake The moonlight touching o'er a terrace What more ? we took our last adieu, But ere we reach'd the highest summit I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. It told of England then to me, O love, we two shall go no longer So dear a life your arms enfold Yet here to-night in this dark city, I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, Still in the little book you lent me, And I forgot the clouded Forth, The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer And gray metropolis of the North. Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again. TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. COME, when no graver cares employ, For, being of that honest few, Should all our churchmen foam in spite Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; Where, far from noise and smoke of town, All round a careless-order'd garden You'll have no scandal while you dine, And only hear the magpie gossip For groves of pine on either hand, And further on, the hoary Channel Where, if below the milky steep And on thro' zones of light and shadow We might discuss the Northern sin Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win: Or whether war's avenging rod Till you should turn to dearer matters, How best to help the slender store, Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet But when the wreath of March has blossom'd, Crocus, anemone, violet, Or later, pay one visit here, For those are few we hold as dear; January, 1854. WILL. 1. O WELL for him whose will is strong! For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, Who seems a promontory of rock, That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 2. But ill for him who, bettering not with time, Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, Or seeming-genial venial fault, Recurring and suggesting still! He seems as one whose footsteps halt, Toiling in immeasurable sand, And o'er a weary sultry land, Far beneath a blazing vault, Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, The city sparkles like a grain of salt. THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE 1. HALF a league, half a league, Half a league onward, Rode the six hundred. Rode the six hundred. 2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Some one had blunder'd: Their's not to make reply, 3. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Rode the six hundred. 4. Flash'd all their sabres bare, All the world wonder'd: |