Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye; With distant music soft and deep, They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep; And when she awakened, she lay her lane, All happed with flowers in the greenwood wene. When seven long years had come and fled; When grief was calm, and hope was dead; When scarce was remembered Kilmeny's name, Late, late in a gloamin, Kilmeny came hame! And oh, her beauty was fair to see, But still and steadfast was her ee! And oh, the words that fell from her mouth Were words of wonder and words of truth! From this session interdict Let the priest in surplice white And thou treble-dated crow, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. So they loved, as love in twain Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance, and no space was seen 'Twixt the turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine, That the turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled, That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, That it cried, How true a twain Whereupon it made this threne To the Phoenix and the dove, Co-supremes and stars of love; As chorus to their tragic scene. THRENOS. BEAUTY, truth, and rarity, Death is now the Phoenix' nest; Leaving no posterity:— 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity. Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. To this urn let those repair COMPLIMENT TO QUEEN ELIZABETH. My gentle Puck, come hither, thou remember'st Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sca-maid's music. That very time, I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell; It fell upon a little western flower, — Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it Love-in-idle Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice: Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes, And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plaits the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes. SHAKSPEARE: Romeo and Juliet. SONG FROM GYPSIES' METAMORPHOSES. THE Owl is abroad, the bat, the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain; The ant and the mole sit both in a hole; And frog peeps out o' the fountain; The dogs they bay, and the timbrels play; The spindle now is a-turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled; But all the sky is a-burning. THE faery beam upon you, And the stars to glister on you, A moon of light In the noon of night, Then to the noblest princes fellow might he be. WARTON: Little Garden of Roses. KUBLA KHAN. IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incensebearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Infolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and en chanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demonlover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: |