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369

SOLITUDE

T is not that my lot is low,

IT

that bids this silent tear to flow;
it is not grief that bids me moan;
it is that I am all alone.

In woods and glens I love to roam,
when the tired hedger hies him home;
or by the woodland pool to rest,
when pale the star looks on its breast.
Yet when the silent evening sighs
with hallowed airs and symphonies,
my spirit takes another tone,
and sighs that it is all alone.
The autumn leaf is sere and dead,
it floats upon the water's bed;
I would not be a leaf to die
without recording sorrow's sigh!

the woods and winds, with sullen wail,
tell all the same unvaried tale;
I've none to smile when I am free,
And when I sigh, to sigh with me.

Yet in my dreams a form I view,
that thinks on me and loves me too:
I start, and then, the vision flown,
I weep that I am all alone.

COME

TO VENUS

'OME, gentle Venus, and assuage
a warring world, a bleeding age;
for nature lives beneath thy ray,
the wintry tempests haste away;
a lucid calm invests the sea,
thy native deep is full of thee:
the flowering earth, where'er you fly,
is all o'er spring, all sun the sky.
A genial spirit warms the breeze;
unseen among the blooming trees,
the feather'd lovers tune their throat,
the desert growls a soften'd note,

H. K. WHITE

370

glad o'er the meads the cattle bound;
and love and harmony go round.

Come, thou delight of heaven and earth!
to whom all creatures owe their birth;
O come, sweet smiling, tender, come!
and yet prevent our final doom.
For long the furious god of war
has crushed us with his iron car,
has raged along our ruined plains,
has soiled them with his cruel stains,
has sunk our youth in endless sleep,
and made the widowed virgin weep.

TO THE SWALLOW

J. THOMSON

SWALLOW, Swallow, flying, flying South, fly to her and fall upon her gilded eaves, and tell her, tell her what I tell to thee.

O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, that bright and fierce and fickle is the South, and dark and true and tender is the North.

O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, and cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

O were I thou that she might take me in, and lay me on her bosom, and her heart would rock the snowy cradle till I died.

Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, delaying as the tender ash delays

to clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown:
say to her, I do but wanton in the South,
but in the North long since my nest is made.
O tell her, brief is life but love is long,
and brief the sun of summer in the North,
and brief the moon of beauty in the South.

O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,
fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,
and tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.

A. TENNYSON

371

372

HYMN ON THE NATIVITY

No war, or battle's sound
heard

was heard the world around;

the idle spear and shield were high up hung;
the hooked chariot stood

unstained with hostile blood;

the trumpet spake not to the arméd throng;
and kings sat still with awful eye,

as if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
But peaceful was the night,
wherein the Prince of light

his reign of peace upon the earth began:
the winds, with wonder whist,
smoothly the waters kissed

whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
who now hath quite forgot to rave,

while birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

The stars, with deep amaze,
stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
bending one way their precious influence,
and will not take their flight,
for all the morning-light,

or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
but in their glimmering orbs did glow,

until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

The shepherds on the lawn

or ere the point of dawn

sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

full little thought they than

that the mighty Pan

was kindly come to live with them below;
perhaps their loves, or else their sheep

was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

their hearts and ears did greet

as never was by mortal finger strook;
divinely-warbled voice

answering the stringéd noise,

as all their souls in blissful rapture took:
the air, such pleasure loth to lose,

with thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

373

Nature that heard such sound
beneath the hollow round

of Cynthia's seat the airy region thrilling,
now was almost won

to think her part was done,

and that her reign had here its last fulfilling;
she knew such harmony alone

could hold all heaven and earth in happier union.
The oracles are dumb;

no voice or hideous hum

runs through the arched roof in words deceiving: Apollo from his shrine

can no more divine,

with hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: no nightly trance or breathed spell

inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o'er

and the resounding shore

a voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
from haunted spring and dale

edged with poplar pale

the parting Genius is with sighing sent;
with flower-inwoven tresses torn

the nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,

and on the holy hearth,

the Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; in urns and altars round

a drear and dying sound

affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; and the chill marble seems to sweat, while each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.

374

ODE TO PEACE

J. MILTON

COM

OME, peace of mind, delightful guest!
return and make thy downy nest

once more in this sad heart:

nor riches I nor power pursue,
nor hold forbidden joys in view;

we therefore need not part.

375

Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,
from avarice and ambition free,

and pleasure's fatal wiles?

For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
the sweets that I was wont to share,
the banquet of thy smiles?

The great, the gay, shall they partake
the Heaven that thou alone canst make?
And wilt thou quit the stream
that murmurs through the dewy mead,
the grove and the sequestered shed,
to be a guest with them?

For thee I panted, thee I prized;
for thee I gladly sacrificed

whate'er I loved before;

and shall I see thee start away,
and helpless, hopeless, hear thee say-
farewell! we meet no more?

W. COWPER

ODE TO PEACE

THOU! who bad'st thy turtles bear
swift from his grasp thy golden hair,
and sought'st thy native skies;

when War, by vultures drawn from far,
to Britain bent his iron car,

and bade his storms arise!

Tired of his rude tyrannic sway
our youth shall fix some festive day,
his sullen shrines to burn:

but thou, who hear'st the turning spheres,
what sounds may charm thy partial ears,
and gain thy blest return!

O Peace, thy injured robes upbind!
O rise, and leave not one behind

of all thy beamy train:

the British Lion, goddess sweet,

lies stretched on earth to kiss thy feet,

and own thy holier reign.

Let others court thy transient smile,

but come to grace thy western isle,