SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd GUINEVERE A FRAGMENT LIKE Souls that balance joy and pain, The maiden Spring upon the plain In crystal vapor every where From draughts of balmy air. Sometimes the linnet piped his song; strong; Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong; By grassy capes with fuller sound Then, in the boyhood of the year, She seem'd a part of joyous A gown of grass-green silk she wore, Now on some twisted ivy-net, Her cream-white mule his pastern set: The rein with dainty finger-tips, A FAREWELL FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea, No more by thee my steps shall be, Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, But here will sigh thine alder-tree, A thousand suns will stream on thee, THE EAGLE FRAGMENT HE clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; And fleeter now she skimm'd the 'MOVE Than she whose elfin prancer springs When all the glimmering moorland With jingling bridle-reins. As she fled fast thro' sun and shade EASTWARD, HAPPY MOVE eastward, happy earth, and leave O happy planet, eastward go, , bear me with thee, smoothly | As shines the moon in clouded skies, borne, Dip forward under starry light, d move me to my marriage-morn, And round again to happy night. THE BEGGAR MAID R arms across her breast she laid; She was more fair than words can say; refooted came the beggar maid Before the king Cophetua. robe and crown the king stept down, To meet and greet her on her way; is no wonder,' said the lords, She is more beautiful than day.' She in her poor attire was seen; One praised her ankles, one her eyes, One her dark hair and lovesome mien. So sweet a face, such angel grace, This beggar maid shall be my 'COME NOT, WHEN I AM DEAD' COME not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thot wouldst not save. That girt the region with high cliff and lawn. I saw that every morning, far withdrawn Beyond the darkness and the cataract, God made Himself an awful rose of dawn, 50 Unheeded; and detaching, fold by fold, From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near, A- vapor heavy, hueless, formless. cold, Came floating on for many a month and year, Unheeded; and I thought I would have spoken, And warn'd that madman ere it grew too late, But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken, When that cold vapor touch'd the palace-gate, And link'd again. I saw within my head A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death, 60 Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath, And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said: 'Sit thee down, and have no shame, Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee; What care I for any name? What for order or degree? 'Let me screw thee up a peg; Let me loose thy tongue with wine; Callest thou that thing a leg? Which is thinnest? thine or mine? Thou shalt not be saved by works, 91 Thou hast been a sinner too; Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks, Empty scarecrows, I and you! 'Fill the cup and fill the can, Have a rouse before the morn; Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born. 'We are men of ruin'd blood; Therefore comes it we are wise. Fish are we that love the mud, Rising to no fancy-flies. 'Name and fame! to fly sublime Is to be the ball of Time, 100 the 'Friendship!-to be two in one |