SONG

I

A SPIRIT haunts the year's las hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;

For at eventide, listening earnestly,

At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks;

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks

Of the mouldering flowers:

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

II

The air is damp, and hush'd, and close,

As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;

My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,

And the breath

Of the fading edges of box beneath,

And the year's last rose.

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

THE THROSTLE

'SUMMER is coming, summer is coming.
I know it, I know it, I know it.

Light again, leaf again, life again, love again,'
Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue.

Last year you sang it as gladly.

'New, new, new, new!' Is it then so new

That you should carol so madly?

'Love again, song again, nest again, young again,'

Never a prophet so crazy!

And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,

See, there is hardly a daisy.

'Here again, here, here, here, happy year!'

O warble unchidden, unbidden !

Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
And all the winters are hidden.

FAR FAR - AWAY

(FOR MUSIC)

WHAT sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,
Far far-away?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?

The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells

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What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,

Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,
Far far away?

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath

From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death

Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,

What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live

Far-far-away?

“MOVE EASTWARD, HAPPY EARTH”

MOVE eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow:

From fringes of the faded eve,

O, happy planet, eastward go;
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister-world, and rise
To glass herself in dewy eyes
That watch me from the glen below.

Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage-morn,
And round again to happy night.

SONGS FROM THE PRINCESS

The Little Grave

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,

And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out

That all the more endears,

When we fall out with those we love

And kiss again with tears!

For when we came where lies the child

We lost in other years,

There above the little grave,

O there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.

"Sweet and low"

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

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ΙΟ

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