Songs of Innocence and Experience | Page 6

from the slumbrous mass.
'Turn away no more;?Why wilt thou turn away??The starry floor,?The watery shore,?Is given thee till the break of day.'
EARTH'S ANSWER
Earth raised up her head?From the darkness dread and drear,?Her light fled,?Stony, dread,?And her locks covered with grey despair.
'Prisoned on watery shore,?Starry jealousy does keep my den?Cold and hoar;?Weeping o'er,?I hear the father of the ancient men.
'Selfish father of men!?Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!?Can delight,?Chained in night,?The virgins of youth and morning bear.
'Does spring hide its joy,?When buds and blossoms grow??Does the sower?Sow by night,?Or the ploughman in darkness plough?
'Break this heavy chain,?That does freeze my bones around!?Selfish, vain,?Eternal bane,?That free love with bondage bound.'
THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE
'Love seeketh not itself to please,?Nor for itself hath any care,?But for another gives its ease,?And builds a heaven in hell's despair.'
So sung a little clod of clay,?Trodden with the cattle's feet,?But a pebble of the brook?Warbled out these metres meet:
'Love seeketh only Self to please,?To bind another to its delight,?Joys in another's loss of ease,?And builds a hell in heaven's despite.'
HOLY THURSDAY
Is this a holy thing to see?In a rich and fruitful land, -?Babes reduced to misery,?Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song??Can it be a song of joy??And so many children poor??It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine,?And their fields are bleak and bare,?And their ways are filled with thorns,?It is eternal winter there.
For where'er the sun does shine,?And where'er the rain does fall,?Babe can never hunger there,?Nor poverty the mind appal.
THE LITTLE GIRL LOST
In futurity?I prophesy?That the earth from sleep?(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise, and seek?For her Maker meek;?And the desert wild?Become a garden mild.
In the southern clime,?Where the summer's prime?Never fades away,?Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old?Lovely Lyca told.?She had wandered long,?Hearing wild birds' song.
'Sweet sleep, come to me,?Underneath this tree;?Do father, mother, weep??Where can Lyca sleep?
'Lost in desert wild?Is your little child.?How can Lyca sleep?If her mother weep?
'If her heart does ache,?Then let Lyca wake;?If my mother sleep,?Lyca shall not weep.
'Frowning, frowning night,?O'er this desert bright?Let thy moon arise,?While I close my eyes.'
Sleeping Lyca lay,?While the beasts of prey,?Come from caverns deep,?Viewed the maid asleep.
The kingly lion stood,?And the virgin viewed:?Then he gambolled round?O'er the hallowed ground.
Leopards, tigers, play?Round her as she lay;?While the lion old?Bowed his mane of gold,
And her bosom lick,?And upon her neck,?From his eyes of flame,?Ruby tears there came;
While the lioness?Loosed her slender dress,?And naked they conveyed?To caves the sleeping maid.
THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND
All the night in woe?Lyca's parents go?Over valleys deep,?While the deserts weep.
Tired and woe-begone,?Hoarse with making moan,?Arm in arm, seven days?They traced the desert ways.
Seven nights they sleep?Among shadows deep,?And dream they see their child?Starved in desert wild.
Pale through pathless ways?The fancied image strays,?Famished, weeping, weak,?With hollow piteous shriek.
Rising from unrest,?The trembling woman pressed?With feet of weary woe;?She could no further go.
In his arms he bore?Her, armed with sorrow sore;?Till before their way?A couching lion lay.
Turning back was vain:?Soon his heavy mane?Bore them to the ground,?Then he stalked around,
Smelling to his prey;?But their fears allay?When he licks their hands,?And silent by them stands.
They look upon his eyes,?Filled with deep surprise;?And wondering behold?A spirit armed in gold.
On his head a crown,?On his shoulders down?Flowed his golden hair.?Gone was all their care.
'Follow me,' he said;?'Weep not for the maid;?In my palace deep,?Lyca lies asleep.'
Then they followed?Where the vision led,?And saw their sleeping child?Among tigers wild.
To this day they dwell?In a lonely dell,?Nor fear the wolvish howl?Nor the lion's growl.
THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER
A little black thing among the snow,?Crying! 'weep! weep!' in notes of woe!?'Where are thy father and mother? Say!' -?'They are both gone up to the church to pray.
'Because I was happy upon the heath,?And smiled among the winter's snow,?They clothed me in the clothes of death,?And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
'And because I am happy and dance and sing,?They think they have done me no injury,?And are gone to praise God and His priest and king,?Who made up a heaven of our misery.'
NURSE'S SONG
When the voices of children are heard on the green,?And whisperings are in the dale,?The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,?My face turns green and pale.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,?And the dews of night arise;?Your spring and your day are wasted in play,?And your winter and night in disguise.
THE SICK ROSE
O rose, thou art sick!?The invisible worm,?That flies in the night,?In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed?Of crimson joy,?And his dark secret love?Does thy life destroy.
THE FLY
Little Fly,?Thy summer's play?My thoughtless hand?Has brushed away.
Am not I?A fly like thee??Or art not thou?A man like me?
For I dance,?And drink, and sing,?Till some blind hand?Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life?And strength and breath,?And the want?Of thought is death;
Then am I?A happy fly.?If I live,?Or if I die.
THE ANGEL
I dreamt a