Primavera | Page 3

With toss'd timbrel and loud tambourine.
Alas! the disenchanting years have roll'd?On hearts and minds becoming cold:?Mirth is gone from us; and the world is old.
O bright new-comer, fill'd with thoughts of joy,?Joy to be thine amid these pleasant plains,?Know'st thou not, child, what surely coming pains?Await thee, for that eager heart's annoy??Misunderstanding, disappointment, tears,?Wrong'd love, spoil'd hope, mistrust and ageing fears,?Eternal longing for one perfect friend,?And unavailing wishes without end??Thou proud and pure of spirit, how must thou bear?To have thine infinite hates and loves confined,?School'd, and despised? How keep unquench'd and free?'Mid others' commerce and economy?Such ample visions, oft in alien air?Tamed to the measure of the common kind??How hard for thee, swept on, for ever hurl'd?From hour to hour, bewilder'd and forlorn,?To move with clear eyes and with steps secure,?To keep the light within, to fitly scorn?Those all too possible and easy goals,?Trivial ambitions of soon-sated souls!?And, patient in thy purpose, to endure?The pity and the wisdom of the world.
Vain, vain such warning to those happy ears!?Disturb not their delight! By unkind powers?Doom'd to keep pace with the relentless Hours,?He, too, ere long, shall feel Earth's glory change;?Familiar names shall take an accent strange,?A deeper meaning, a more human tone;?No more pass'd by, unheeded or unknown,?The things that then shall be beheld through tears.
Yet, O just Nature, thou?Who, if men's hearts be hard, art always mild;?O fields and streams, and places undefiled,?Let your sweet airs be ever on his brow,?Remember still your child.?Thou too, O human world, if old desires,?If thoughts, not alien once, can move thee now,?Teach him not yet that idly he aspires?Where thou hast fail'd; not soon let it be plain,?That all who seek in thee for nobler fires,?For generous passion, spend their hopes in vain:?Lest that insidious Fate, foe of mankind,?Who ever waits upon our weakness, try?With whispers his unnerved and faltering mind,?Palsy his powers; for she has spells to dry,?Like the March blast, his blood, turn flesh to stone,?And, conjuring action with necessity,?Freeze the quick will, and make him all her own.
Come, then, as ever, like the Wind at morning!?Joyous, O Youth, in the aged world renew?Freshness to feel the eternities around it,?Rains, stars, and clouds, light and the sacred dew.?The strong sun shines above thee:?That strength, that radiance bring!?If Winter come to Winter,?When shall men hope for Spring?
LAURENCE BINYON.

'Tis my twentieth year: dim, now, youth stretches behind me; Breaking fresh at my feet, lies, like an ocean, the world. And despised seem, now, those quiet fields I have travell'd: Eager to thee I turn, Life, and thy visions of joy.?Fame I see, with her wreath, far off approaching to crown me; Love, whose starry eyes fever my heart with desire:?And impassion'd I yearn for the future, all unconscious, Ah, poor dreamer! what ills life in its circle enfolds. Not more restless the boy, whose eager, confident bosom The wide, unknown sea fills with a hunger to roam.?Often beside the surge of the desolate ocean he paces;?Ingrate, dreams of a sky brighter, serener than his.?Passionate soul! light holds he a mother's tearful entreaties, Lightly leaves he behind all the sad faces of home;?Never again, perchance, to behold them; lost in the tempest, Or on some tropic shore dying in fever and pain!
MANMOHAN GHOSE.
TESTAMENTUM AMORIS
I cannot raise my eyelids up from sleep,?But I am visited with thoughts of you;?Slumber has no refreshment half so deep?As the sweet morn, that wakes my heart anew.
I cannot put away life's trivial care,?But you straightway steal on me with delight:?My purest moments are your mirror fair;?My deepest thought finds you the truth most bright.
You are the lovely regent of my mind,?The constant sky to my unresting sea;?Yet, since 'tis you that rule me, I but find?A finer freedom in such tyranny.
Were the world's anxious kingdoms govern'd so,?Lost were their wrongs, and vanish'd half their woe!
LAURENCE BINYON.
AMAVIMUS, AMAMUS, AMABIMUS
Persephone, Persephone!?Still I fancy I can see?Thee amid the daffodils.?Golden wealth thy basket fills;?Golden blossoms at thy breast;?Golden hair that shames the West;?Golden sunlight round thy head!?Ah! the golden years have fled;?Thee have reft, and me have left?Here alone, thy loss to mourn.
Persephone, Persephone!?Still I fancy I can see?Her, as white and still she lies:?Death has woo'd and won his prize.?White the blossoms at her breast;?White and still her face at rest;?White the moonbeams round her head.?Ah! the wintry years have fled;?Comfort lent and patience sent,?And my grief is easier borne.
Persephone, Persephone!?Still in dreams thou com'st to me;?Every night art at my side,?Half my bride, and half Death's bride!?Golden blossoms at thy breast;?Golden hair that shames the West;?Golden sunlight circling thee!?Half of gold the lone years flee:?Night is glad, though day is sad,?Till I go where thou art gone.
ARTHUR S. CRIPPS.
TO A LOST LOVE
I cannot look upon thy grave,?Though there the rose is sweet:?Better to hear the long wave wash?These wastes