Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 415 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 420 Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. - Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 425 430 So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 435 Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 440 But when that moan had past for evermore, From the great deep to the great deep he goes.' 445 Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb The last hard footstep of that iron crag; Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, He passes to be King among the dead, And after healing of his grievous wound He comes again; but if he come no more— 450 On that high day, when, clothed with living light, 455 Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?' Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint As from beyond the limit of the world, Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 460 Around a king returning from his wars. Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 465 THE SPLENDOR FALLS. THE splendor falls on castle walls The long light shakes across the lakes, Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! 5 HOME THEY BROUGHT HER WARRIOR DEAD. 303 O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. ΙΟ 15 BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter 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 vanish'd hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead 15 THE BROOK. I COME from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, 5 |