SONG OF THE NOVICE TO QUEEN GUINEVERE. E JATE, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light so late! and dark and chill the night; O let us in, that we may find the light! Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? O let us in, though late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now. RING OUT, WILD BELLS. AR ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of oid, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. THE POET'S SONG. HE rain had fallen, the Poet arose, A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And chanted a melody loud and sweet, That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, And the lark drop down at his feet. The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs, But never a one so gay, For he sings of what the world will be BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. REAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead |