Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. The flower ripens in its place, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on To hear each other's whisper'd speech; To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, To the influence of mild-minded melan- To muse and brood and live again in With those old faces of our infancy VI. Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, For surely now our household hearths Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no Or else the island princes over-bold toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. IV. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Have eat our substance, and the minstrel There is confusion worse than death, Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,'T is hard to settle order once again. In silence; ripen, fall and cease: or dreamful ease. V. wars And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. VII. But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, With half-dropt eyelids still, How sweet it were, hearing the downward To watch the long bright river drawing To watch the emerald-color❜d water falling | Resting weary limbs at last on beds of Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine. VIII. The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: The Lotos blows by every winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone : Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotus-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earth quake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer some, 't is whisper'd-down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall; | Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron Lances in ambush set; And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts That run before the fluttering tongues of fire; White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and masts, And ever climbing higher; Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, As when a great thought strikes along | The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame the brain, And flushes all the cheek. And once my arm was lifted to hew down A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town; And then, I know not how, All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, and brought Into the gulfs of sleep. At last methought that I had wander'd far In an old wood: fresh-wash'd in coolest dew The maiden splendors of the morning star Shook in the stedfast blue. The times when I remember to have been Joyful and free from blame. And from within me a clear under-tone Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful clime, "Pass freely thro': the wood is all thine own, Until the end of time." "The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat; The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore; The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat; Touch'd; and I knew no more." Whereto the other with a downward brow: "We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit, "And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms, My Hercules, my Roman Antony, "I would the white cold heavy- My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms, plunging foam, Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below, Then when I left my home." Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear, As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea: Sudden I heard a voice that cried, "Come here, That I may look on thee." I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd; A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, Brow-bound with burning gold. She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began: Contented there to die! "I govern'd men by change, and so A I sway'd All moods. T is long since I have seen a man. Once, like the moon, I made "The ever-shifting currents of the blood According to my humorebb and flow. I have no men to govern in this wood: That makes my only woe. "Nay-yet it chafes me that I could not bend One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye That dull cold-blooded Cæsar. Prythee, friend, Where is Mark Antony? "The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by God: The Nilus would have risen before his time And flooded at our nod. Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, name for ever!-lying robed and crown'd, Worthy a Roman spouse." Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range Struck by all passion, did fall down From tone to tone, and glided thro' all and glance change Of liveliest utterance. When she made pause I knew not for delight; Because with sudden motion from the ground She raised her piercing orbs, and fill'd with light The interval of sound. Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts; As once they drew into two burning rings All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts Of captains and of kings. |