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The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering

square;

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigued On lips that are for others, deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret, O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

SONG TO THE SWALLOW.

SWALLOW, Swallow, 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 thec."

ENID'S SONG.

JURN, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;

Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;

Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or

frown;

With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;

For man is man and master of his fate.

Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;

Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

VIVIEN'S SONG.

IN Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,

Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal

powers;

Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

It is the little rift within the lute
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.

The little rift within the lover's lute,
Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit,
That rotting inward slowly moulders all.

It is not worth the keeping: let it go; But shall it? answer, darling, auswer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all.

ELAINE'S SONG.

WEET is true love though given in vain, in vain ;

And sweet is death who puts an end to pain:

I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be:

Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die.

Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away,

Sweet death that seems to make us loveless clay, I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.

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