Works

Strange little spring, by channels past our telling,
Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling;
Through what blind ways, we know not whence
You darkling come to dance and dimple -
Strange little spring!...

Welcome, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.

The ungrateful world
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,...

I list your prattle, baby boy,
And hear your pattering feet
With feelings more of pain than joy
And thoughts of bitter-sweet.

While touching your soft hands in play
Such passionate longings rise...

Lie Philo untouch'd, on my peaceable shelf,
Nor take it amiss that so little I heed thee;
I've no envy to thee, and some love to myself:
Then why should I answer since first I must read thee?...

Ph[oe]bus! when that I a verse
Or some numbers more rehearse,
Tune my words that they may fall
Each way smoothly musical:
For which favour there shall be
Swans devoted unto thee.

Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,
And at my casement sing,
Though it should prove a farewell lay
And this our parting spring.

Though I, alas! may ne'er enjoy
The promise in thy song;...

Call me no more, O gentle stream,
To wander through thy sunny dream,
No more to lean at twilight cool
Above thy weir and glimmering pool.

Surely I know thy hoary dawns,...

You say 'tis plain that poets feign,
And from the truth depart;
They write with ease what fibs they please,
With artifice, not art;
Dearer to you the simply true--
The fact without the fancy--...

Sauntering hither on listless wings,
Careless vagabond of the sea,
Little thou heedest the surf that sings,
The bar that thunders, the shale that rings,
Give me to keep thy company.
...

When I had wings, my brother,
Such wings were mine as thine:
Such life my heart remembers
In all as wild Septembers
As this when life seems other,
Though sweet, than once was mine;...

Let thy wheel-barrow alone
Wherefore, Sexton, piling still
In thy bone-house bone on bone?
'Tis already like a hill
In a field of battle made,
Where three thousand skulls are laid;...

If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,
Whether to look upon your monument
(I wonder if the builder has been paid)
Or happier thoughted when the day is spent
To drink of that salt breath out of the sea...

OD. i. 14.

Yet on fresh billows seaward wilt thou ride,
O ship? What dost thou? Seek a hav'n, and there
Rest thee: for lo! thy side
Is oarless all and bare,
...

("Si vous continuez toute p'le.")

[November, 1870.]


If you continue thus so wan and white;
If I, one day, behold
You pass from out our dull air to the light,
You, infant - I, so old:...

Who dough shall knead as for God's sake
Shall fill it with celestial leaven,
And every loaf that she shall bake
Be eaten of the Blest in heaven.

A fresh young voice that sings to me
So often many a simple thing,
Should surely not unanswered be
By all that I can sing.

Dear voice, be happy every way
A thousand changing tones among,...

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?...

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher...

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,
With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find...

And thou, twin orbs of love and joy!
Unveil thy glories with the morn--
Dear eyes, another day is born--
Awake, O little sleeping boy!
Bright are the summer morning skies,
But in this quiet little room...