ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

TO A CARRIER PIGEON.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

107

To a Carrier Pigeon.

COME hither, thou beautiful rover,

Thou wanderer of earth and of air,
That bearest the sighs of the lover,
And bringest him news of his fair.
Bend hither thy light-waving pinion,
And show me the gloss of thy neck:
Come, perch on my hand. dearest minion,
And turn up thy bright eye, and peck.

Here is bread of the brightest and sweetest,
And here is a sip of red wine;

Though thy wing is the lightest and fleetest,
'Twill be fleeter when nerved by the vine.
I have written on rose-scented paper,

With thy wing-quill, a soft billet-doux; I have melted the wax in love's taper,'Tis the color of true heart's sky-blue.

I have fastened it under thy pinion,
With a blue ribbon round thy soft neck;
So go from me, beautiful minion,

While the pure ether shows not a speck,—
Like a cloud, in the dim distance fleeting,
Like an arrow, he hurries away;
And farther and farther retreating,
He is lost in the clear blue of day.

JAMES G. PERCIVAL.

I

Love.-(Songs of Seven.)

LEANED out of window, I smelt the white clover, Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate; "Now if there be footsteps, he comes, my one loverHush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait Till I listen and hear

If a step draweth near,
For my love, he is late!

"The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer,
A cluster of stars hangs like fruit on the tree:
The fall of the water comes sweeter, comes clearer;-
To what art thou listening, and what dost thou see?
Let the star-clusters glow,

Let the sweet waters flow,

And cross quickly to me.

"You night-moths that hover where honey brims over
From sycamore blossoms, or settle, or sleep;
You glow-worms shine out, and the pathway discover
To him that comes darkling along the rough steep.
Ah, my sailor, make haste,

For the time runs to waste,
And my love lieth deep-

"Too deep for swift telling; and yet, my one lover,
I've conned thee an answer, it waits thee to-night."
By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover,
And all the sweet speech I had fashioned, took flight.
But I'll love him more, more
Than e'er wife loved before,
Be the days dark or bright.

JEAN INGELOW.

ABSENCE.

As to the Distant Moon.

A

S to the distant moon

The sea forever turns;

As to the polar star

The earth forever yearns:
So doth my constant heart

Beat oft for thine alone,

And o'er its far-off heaven of dreams

Thine image high enthrone.

But ah! the sea and moon,

The earth and star meet never;

And space as wide, and dark, and high

Divideth us forever!

109

ANNE C. LYNCH.

Absence.

HAT shall I do with all the days and hours

WHAT

That must be counted ere I see thy face?

How shall I charm the interval that lowers

Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense- -
Weary with longing? Shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
Cheat myself to forget the present day?

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin
Of casting from me God's great gift of time?
Shall I, these mists of memory locked within,
Leave and forget life's purposes sublime?

O, how, or by what means, may I contrive

To bring the hour that brings thee back more near? How may I teach my drooping hope to live

Until that blessed time, and thou art here?

I'll tell thee; for thy sake I will lay hold
Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee,
In worthy deeds, each moment that is told
While thou, beloved one! art far from me.

For thee I will arouse my thoughts to try

All heavenward flights, all high and holy strains; For thy dear sake I will walk patiently

Through these long hours, nor call their minutes pains

I will this dreary blank of absence make

A noble task-time; and will therein strive To follow excellence, and to o'ertake

More good than I have won since yet I live.

So may this doomed time build up in me

A thousand graces, which shall thus be thine; So may my love and longing hallowed be,

And thy dear thought an influence divine.

FRANCES ANɲe Kemble.

THI

From the Epipsychidion.

HIS isle and house are mine, and I have vowed
Thee to be lady of the solitude;

And I have fitted up some chambers there,
Looking toward the golden eastern air,
And level with the living winds, which flow
Like waves above the living waves below.
I have sent books and music there, and all
Those instruments with which high spirits call
The future from its cradle, and the past
Out of its grave, and make the present last
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,
Folded within their own eternity.

COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD.

Meanwhile,

We two will rise, and sit, and walk together,
Under the roof of blue Ionian weather,

And wander in the meadows, or ascend

The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend
With lightest winds to touch their paramour;
Or linger where the pebble-paven shore,
Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea,
Tumbles and sparkles as with ecstasy,—
Possessing and possessed by all that is
Within that calm circumference of bliss,
And by each other, till to love and live
Be one.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Come into the Garden, Maud.

'OME into the garden, Maud—

COM

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.

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 she loves

To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon:

All night has the casement jessamine stirred
To the dancers dancing in tune-

Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

III

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »