And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. ODE ON MELANCHOLY. no! go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. She dwells with Beauty Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung. LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN. OULS of poets dead and gone, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? I have heard that on a day To a sheepskin gave the story, Sipping beverage divine, And pledging with contented smack Souls of poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? No ROBIN HOOD. TO A FRIEND. ! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden pall Of the leaves of many years: Many times have Winter's shears, Frozen North, and chilling East, Sounded tempests to the feast Of the forest's whispering fleeces, Since men knew nor rent nor leases. No, the bugle sounds no more, Past the heath and up the hill; On the fairest time of June You may go, with sun or moon, Or the seven stars to light you, Or the polar ray to right you; But you never may behold Little John, or Robin bold; Never one, of all the clan, Thrumming on an empty can, Some old hunting ditty, while Gone, the merry morris din; She would weep, and he would craze : She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her strange! that honey Can't be got without hard money! So it is; yet let us sing Honour to the woods unshorn! SLEEP AND POETRY. As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete W1 -CHAUCER. HAT is more gentle than a wind in summer? mer That stays one moment in an open flower, Light hoverer around our happy pillows! Most happy listener! when the morning blesses But what is higher beyond thought than thee? Fresher than berries of a mountain-tree? More strange, more beautiful, more smooth, more regal, Than wings of swans, than doves, than dim-seen eagle? What is it? And to what shall I compare it ? It has a glory, and nought else can share it: |