And left his coal all turn'd into gold 2. What, has he found my jewel out? For one of the two that rode at her side 3. Last week came one to the county town, 4. I wish I could hear again The chivalrous battle-song That she warbled alone in her joy! I might persuade myself then She would not do herself this great wrong To take a wanton, dissolute boy For a man and leader of men. 5. Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, One still strong man in a blatant land, 6. And ah for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be! XI. 1. O LET the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet Before my life has found What some have found so sweet; Then let come what come may, What matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day. 2. Let the sweet heavens endure, Not close and darken above me Before I am quite quite sure That there is one to love me; Then let come what come may To a life that has been so sad, I shall have had my day. XII. 1. BIRDS in the high Hall-garden 2. Where was Maud? in our wood; And I, who else, was with her, Gathering woodland lilies, Myriads blow together. 3. Birds in our woods sang 4. I kiss'd her slender hand, She took the kiss sedately. Maud is not seventeen, But she is tall and stately 5. I to cry out on pride Who have won her favor! O Maud were sure of Heaven If lowliness could save her. 6. I know the way she went Home with her maiden posy, For her feet have touch'd the meadows And left the daisies rosy. 7. Birds in the high Hall-garden 8. Look, a horse at the door, And little King Charles is snarling, Go back, my lord, across the moor, You are not her darling. XIII. 1. SCORN'D, to be scorn'd by one that I scorn, Is that a matter to make me fret ? And six feet two, as I think, he stands; But his essences turn'd the live air sick, And barbarous opulence jewel-thick Sunn'd itself on his breast and his hands. 2. Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, But while I past he was humming an air, 3. Why sits he here in his father's chair? Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat; Made her only the child of her mother, Tins lump of earth has left his estate And I see my Oread coming down, O this is the day! O beautiful creature, what am I That I dare to look her way; Think I may hold dominion sweet, Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast, To the grace that, bright and light as the crest I know it the one bright thing to save 2. What, if she were fasten'd to this fool lord, Had given her word to a thing so low? Can break her word were it even for me? 3. Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye, For I must tell her before we part, Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart, I must tell her, or die. XVII. Go not, happy day, From the shining fields, Go not, happy day, Till the maiden yields. Rosy is the West, Falters from her lips, Over seas at rest, Pass the happy news, Blush it thro' the West, Till the red man dance By his red cedar-tree, And the red man's babe Leap, beyond the sea. Blush from West to East, Blush from East to West, Till the West is East, Blush it thro' the West. Rosy is the West, Rosy is the South, Roses are her cheeks, And a rose her mouth. There is none like her, none. Nor will be when our summers have deceased. O, art thou sighing for Lebanon 5. But now shine on, and what care I, 6. Would die for sullen-seeming Death may give More life to Love than is or ever was In our low world, where yet 't is sweet to live. It seems that I am happy, that to me 7. Not die; but live a life of truest breath, Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this? "The dusky strand of Death inwoven here With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear. 8. Is that enchanted moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay? Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow Of your soft splendors that you look so bright? I have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, East, Sighing for Lebanon, Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased, And looking to the South, and fed Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, came. 4. Here will I lie, while these long branches sway, Who am no more so all forlorn, As when it seem'd far better to be born To labor and the mattock-harden'd hand, Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tel XIX. 1. HER brother is coming back to-night, Breaking up my dream of delight. 2. My dream? do I dream of bliss? O when did a morning shine Darken'd watching a mother decline And that dead man at her heart and minc: For who was left to watch her but I? Yet so did I let my freshness die. 3. I trust that I did not talk To gentle Maud in our walk (For often in lonely wanderings I have cursed him even to lifeless things) And Maud too, Maud was moved Dying abroad and it seems apart From him who had ceased to share her heart, The household Fury sprinkled with blood On the day when Maud was born; Seal'd her mine from her first sweet breath. Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death, Mine, mine-our fathers have sworn. 5. But the true blood spilt had in it a heat To be friends for her sake, to be reconciled; 6. But then what a flint is he! I find whenever she touch'd on me To me, her friend of the years before; And this was what had redden'd her cheek, When I bow'd to her on the moor. 7. Yet Mand, altho' not blind To the faults of his heart and mind, I see she cannot but love him, And says he is rough but kind, That he left his wine and horses and play, 8. Kind? but the death-bed desire Spurn'd by this heir of the liarRough but kind? yet I know He has plotted against me in this, That he plots against me still. Kind to Maud? that were not amiss. Well, rough but kind; why, let it be so: For shall not Maud have her will? 9. For, Maud, so tender and true, 10. So now I have sworn to bury I feel so free and so clear By the loss of that dead weight, That I should grow light-headed, I fear, Fantastically merry; But that her brother comes, like a blight On my fresh hope, to the Hall to-night. XX. 1. STRANGE, that I felt so gay, Who but claims her as his due? Or for chilling his caresses By the coldness of her manners, 2. But to-morrow, if we live, To half the squirelings near; And Maud will wear her jewels, And the bird o. prey will hover, And the titmouse hope to win her With his chirrup at her ear. 3. A grand political dinner A dinner and then a dance For the maids and marriage-makers, And every eye but mine will glance At Maud in all her glory. 4. For I am not invited, But, with the Sultan's pardo I am all as well delighted, For I know her own rose-garden, And mean to linger in it XXI. RIVULET Crossing my ground, And bringing me down from the Hall This garden-rose that I found, Forgetful of Maud and me, And lost in trouble and moving round Here at the head of a tinkling fall And trying to pass to the sea; O Rivulet, born at the Hall, My Maud has sent it by thee (If I read her sweet will right) XXII. 1. COME into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the roses blown. 2. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun that she loves, To faint in his light, and to die. 3. All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon ; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 4. I said to the lily, "There is but one With whom she has heart to be gay. When will the dancers leave her alone? She is weary of dance and play." Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day; Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away. 5. I said to the rose, "The brief night goes O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, "For ever and ever, mine." 6. And the soul of the rose went into my blood, And long by the garden lake I stood, 7. From the meadow your walks have left so sweet That whenever a March-wind sighs He sets the jewel-print of your feet, In violets blue as your eyes, To the woody hollows in which we meet 8. The slender acacia would not shake The white lake-blossom fell into the lake, As the pimpernel dozed on the lee; The lilies and roses were all awake, 9. Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Shine, out, little head, sunning over with curis, 10. There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" 11. She is coming, my own, my sweet. Were it earth in an earthy bed; XXIII. 1. "The fault was mine, the fault was mine. And there rises ever a passionate cry O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky, For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word, And while she wept, and I strove to be cool, Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, And he struck me, madman, over the face, From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code Our wood, that is dearer than all; That must have life for a blow. |