Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint : Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain—Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain : Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd ;— Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far away, Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree— There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space; Iron jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Mated with a squalid savage-what to me were sun or clime? I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day : Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall ! Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; GODIVA. I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the To watch the three tall spires; and there The city's ancient legend into this : Not only we, the latest seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, And loathed to see them overtax'd; but Did more, and underwent, and overcame, Their children, clamouring, 'If we pay, She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, His beard a foot before him, and his hair And pray'd him, 'If they pay this tax, they starve.' Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear; 'But prove me what it is I would not do.' And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, He answer'd, 'Ride you naked thro' the town, And I repeal it ;' and nodding, as in scorn, He parted, with great strides among his dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind, As winds from all the compass shift and blow, Made war upon each other for an hour, all The hard condition; but that she would Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Then fled she to her inmost bower, With twelve great shocks of sound, the and there Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath She linger'd, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, shameless noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, One after one: but even then she gain'd Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her To meet her lord, she took the tax away And built herself an everlasting name. knee ; Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro' the Gothic archway in the wall. Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, THE DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O LADY FLORA, let me speak : A pleasant hour has passed away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming—and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face, Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly. THE SLEEPING PALACE. I. THE varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains, |