Ionica | Page 9

a score,

When I grow eloquent, and speak
Of England, and of war--
Oh, better than the world of dress
And pompous dining, out,
Better
than simpering and finesse
Is all this stir and rout.
I'll borrow life, and not grow old;
And nightingales and trees
Shall
keep me, though the veins be cold,
As young as Sophocles.
And when I may no longer live,
They'll say, who know the truth,

He gave whatever he had to give
To freedom and to youth.
PROSPERO
Farewell, my airy pursuivants, farewell.
We part to-day, and I resign

This lonely island, and this rocky cell,
And all that hath been mine.
"Ah, whither go we? Why not follow thee,
Our human king, across
the wave,
The man that rescued us from rifted tree,
Bleak marsh,
and howling cave."
Oh no. The wand I wielded then is buried,
Broken, and buried in the
sand.
Oh no. By mortal hands I must be ferried
Unto the Tuscan
strand.
You came to cheer my exile, and to lift
The weight of silence off my
lips:
With you I ruled the clouds, and ocean-drift,
Meteors, and
wandering ships.
Your fancies glinting on my central mind
Fell off in beams of many
hues,
Soft lambent light. Yet, severed from mankind,
Not light, but
heat, I lose.
I go, before my heart be chilled. Behold,
The bark that bears me
waves her flag,
To chide my loitering. Back to your mountain-hold,

And flee the tyrant hag.

Away. I hear your little voices sinking
Into the wood-notes of the
breeze:
I hear you say: "Enough, enough of thinking;
Love lies
beyond the seas."
AMATURUS
Somewhere beneath the sun,
These quivering heart-strings prove it,

Somewhere there must be one
Made for this soul, to move it;
Some one that hides her sweetness
From neighbours whom she
slights,
Nor can attain completeness,
Nor give her heart its rights;
Some one whom I could court
With no great change of manner,

Still holding reason's fort,
Though waving fancy's banner;
A lady, not so queenly
As to disdain my hand,
Yet born to smile
serenely
Like those that rule the land;
Noble, but not too proud;
With soft hair simply folded,
And bright
face crescent-browed,
And throat by Muses moulded;
And eyelids lightly falling
On little glistening seas,
Deep-calm,
when gales are brawling,
Though stirred by every breeze:
Swift voice, like flight of dove
Through minster arches floating,

With sudden turns, when love
Gets overnear to doting;
Keen lips, that shape soft sayings
Like crystals of the snow,
With
pretty half-betrayings
Of things one may not know;
Fair hand, whose touches thrill,
Like golden rod of wonder,
Which
Hermes wields at will
Spirit and flesh to sunder;
Light foot, to press the stirrup
In fearlessness and glee,
Or dance,
till finches chirrup,
And stars sink to the sea.

Forth, Love, and find this maid,
Wherever she be hidden:
Speak,
Love, be not afraid,
But plead as thou art bidden;
And say, that he who taught thee
His yearning want and pain,
Too
dearly, dearly bought thee
To part with thee in vain.
MORTEM, QUAE VIOLAT SUAVI A PELLIT AMOR
The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats
The sea in wrath and
mockery fills,
The smoke, that up the valley floats,
The girlhood of
the growing hills;
The thunderings from the miners' ledge,
The wild assaults on nature's
hoard,
The peak, that stormward bares an edge
Ground sharp in
days when Titans warred;
Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced
Where lightning's
ministers conspire,
Grey glens, with tarn and streamlet laced,
Stark
forgeries of primeval fire;
These scenes may gladden many a mind
Awhile from homelier
thoughts released,
And here my fellow-men may find
A Sabbath
and a vision-feast.
I bless them in the good they feel;
And yet I bless them with a sigh:

On me this grandeur stamps the seal
Of tyrannous mortality.
The pitiless mountain stands so sure,
The human breast so weakly
heaves;
That brains decay, while rocks endure,
At this the insatiate
spirit grieves.
But hither, oh ideal bride!
For whom this heart in silence aches,

Love is unwearied as the tide,
Love is perennial as the lakes;
Come thou. The spiky crags will seem
One harvest of one heavenly
year,
And fear of death, like childish dream,
Will pass and flee,

when thou art here.
TWO FRAGMENTS OF CHILDHOOD
When these locks were yellow as gold,
When past days were easily
told,
Well I knew the voice of the sea,
Once he spake as a friend to
me.
Thunder-roarings carelessly heard,
Once that poor little heart they
stirred.
Why, oh, why?
Memory, Memory!
She that I wished to be
with was by.
Sick was I in those misanthrope days
Of soft caresses, womanly ways;

Once that maid on the stairs I met,
Lip on brow she suddenly set.
Then flushed up my chivalrous blood
Like Swiss streams in a
midsummer flood.
Then, oh, then,
Imogen, Imogen!
Hadst thou a
lover, whose years were ten.
WAR MUSIC
One hour of my boyhood, one glimpse of the past,
One beam of the
dawn ere the heavens were o'ercast.
I came to a castle by royalty's grace,
Forgot I was bashful, and feeble,
and base.
For stepping to music I dreamt of a siege,
A vow to my
mistress, a fight for my liege.
The first sound of trumpets that fell on
mine ear
Set warriors around me and made me their peer.

Meseemed we were arming, the bold for