THE DESERTED HOUSE LIFE and Thought have gone away Leaving door and windows wide: All within is dark as night: Close the door, the shutters close, Of the dark deserted house. Come away: no more of mirth Is here or merry-making sound. Come away: for Life and Thought A great and distant city-have bought Would they could have stayed with us! WHERE lies the land to which the ship would go? On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, The Bourne 3203 On stormy nights, when wild north-westers rave, Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. Where lies the land to which the ship would go? And where the land she travels from? Away, Arthur Hugh Clough [1819-1861] UP-HILL DOES the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come. Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894] THE BOURNE UNDERNEATH the growing grass, Deeper than the sound of showers: By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain, Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain. Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894] THE CONQUEROR WORM Lo! 'tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years. A play of hopes and fears, Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly; Mere puppets they, who come and go That motley drama-oh, be sure With its Phantom chased for evermore Through a circle that ever returneth in To the self-same spot; And much of Madness, and more of Sin, But see amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude: A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! 3205 The City in the Sea It writhes!-it writhes!-with mortal pangs! The mimes become its food, And seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued. Out-out are the lights-out all! Comes down with the rush of a storm, That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero, the Conqueror Worm. Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] THE CITY IN THE SEA Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not) Around, by lifting winds forgot, The melancholy waters lie. No rays from the holy heaven come down The viol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky So blend the turrets and shadows there While from a proud tower in the town There open fanes and gaping graves Tempt the waters from their bed; Along that wilderness of glass; No swellings tell that winds may be No heavings hint that winds have been But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave-there is a movement there! Shall do it reverence. Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS THERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, |