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Low mourned the Oread round the Arcadian hills;
The Naiad murmured and the Dryad moaned;
The meadow-maiden left her daffodils
To join the Hamadryades who groaned
Over a sister newly fallen dead....

How good some years of life may be!
Ah, once it was not guessed by me,
Past years would shine, like some bright sea,
In golden dusks of memory.

Ere then the music of the dawn...

"And there shall be no night there and they
need no candle, and neither light of the sun;
for the Lord God giveth them Light."


Your place is Heaven, a stormless nightless home?...

"What traveller soever wander here
In quest of peace and what is best of pleasure,
Let not his hope be overcast and drear
Because I, Death, am here to fix the measure
Of life, even in blameless Arcady....

Dry light reverberates, colour withdrawing
Into a sky so white, sight cannot follow it.
While in the shadows cast, rich hues, intenser
Far than in light spaces, offer me gladness....

Dirge the sorrows by time made dim:
Seas are sullen in rain and mist.
Regret the woes that behind us swim:
Sullen's the north and grey the east.

Black boats speck the horizon's rim:...

Long is it since they ceased to look on light,
To thrill with hope in our fond human way.
Why grudge them rest in their sweet ancient night,
Ungrieved, if never gay,
Eased from Life's sorry day?
...

Though here fair blooms the rose and the woodbine waves on high,
And oak and elm and bracken frond enrich the rolling lea,
And winds as if from Arcady breathe joy as they go by,...

A gurly breeze swept from the pool
The Autumn peace so blue and cool,
Which all day long had dreamed thereon
Of men and things aforetime gone,
Their vanished joy, their ended dule:...

When Grief comes this way by
With her wan lip and drooping eye,
Bid her welcome, woo her boldly;
Soon she'll look on thee less coldly.

Her tears soon cease to flow....

Despairless! Hopeless! Quietly I wait
On these unpeopled tracks the happy close
Of Day, whose advent rang with noise elate,
Whose later stage was quick with mirthful shows...

The Love that speaks in word and kiss,
That dyes the cheek and fires the eye,
Through surface signs of shallow bliss
That, quickly born, may quickly die;
Sweet, sweet are these to man and woman;...

What though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind?
Not the less shall I
Cast on this life a kindly eye,
Glad if through its mystery
Faint gleams of love and truth glance o'er my mind.
...

Critic John cam here to view
Ha, ha, the viewin' o't!
Lindsay's picture shop bran new,
Ha, ha, the viewin' o't!
John, he cast his head fu' high,
Looked asklent and unco' skeigh,...