SCYTHE SONG. Stalwart mowers, brown and lithe, Soft through Hades' twilight air? Comes the long blade, gleaming cold, Dames that o'er them once would tread, Where is all your sweetness fled? Hush! the Scythe says, where, ah where? Time! who tak'st and giv'st again All things bitter, some things sweet, Must we follow, all in vain Follow still those phantom feet? Where our Dreams and we may meet? HIC JACKET. And is it possible? - and must it be Must we indeed fall under that strange spell, In sullen severance patient and resigned, Must you whose heart makes answer to mine own, Whose voice compels me with its every tone, And I to turn and tremble at your name, Our joy our hope our fear? Sweet, 'tis the one thing certain rail or weep, Plead or defy, take counsel as we may, Nay, The harvest of the years we sow and reap, A SUMMER NIGHT. 'Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne Me rendra fou.' O murky evening air, Unsought, un found, unknown, With faint night-odours blown? Future art thou, or Past? Hope, or Regret? My heart throbs thick and fast, Mine eyes are wet, For well and well I know Thou hast no share, Nor hence, nor long ago, RESURGAM. Though I am old, the world will still be young - And dense and green the new year's grass hath sprung: Ay, though my light is dimmed and my heart wrung By pitiless eld's unsparing cruelties. Ah, for that shore beyond the unsailed seas! And yet and yet most sweet it is to know That though my meagre days be withering, Still shall be wrought the miracle of Spring, That deep May nights shall bloom, and love-lamps glow, Still shall the town's bright rapids swirl and flow, The meteor troop of passions come and go; That men shall love, and hate, and laugh, and sing. I see my imperfection perfected, My hampered hopes by stronger hearts set free, My halting plans by others crowned and sped, When o'er my head the veil of death is drawn And so I cannot but be comforted To think how fair my world will always be, Thus shall I live again though I be dead; SPRING SONG. So many ways to wander in, So many lands to see! The west wind blows through the orchard-close, And the white clouds wander free; The wild birds sing in the heart of Spring, And it 's O, for the wide world, far away! It calls me, claims me, the live-long day, The wild birds sing in the heart of Spring, 'Far, and far, in the distance dim, I know not where, but the world is fair The wild birds sing in the heart of Spring, So many ways I may never win, O wood-ways sweet for the vagrant feet, What do they sing in the heart of Spring, Farewell, farewell, to my father's house! Dear, and dear, are the kind hearts here, But the wild birds sing in the heart of Spring, FINIS. Even for you I shall not weep When I at last, at last am dead, Even of you I shall not dream Beneath the waving graveyard grass; Even for you I would not wake, EPITAPH. Now lay thee down to sleep, and dream of me; Though thou are dead and I am living yet, Though cool thy couch and sweet thy slumbers be, Dream - do not quite forget. Sleep all the autumn, all the winter long, |