Songs of Travel | Page 4

lighted lamp in the eventide.
Thick as the stars at night when the moon is down,
Pleasures assail
him. He to his nobler fate
Fares; and but waves a hand as he passes
on,
Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate,
Sings but a
boyish stave and his face is gone.
IV
IN dreams, unhappy, I behold you stand
As heretofore:
The
unremembered tokens in your hand
Avail no more.
No more the morning glow, no more the grace,
Enshrines, endears.

Cold beats the light of time upon your face
And shows your tears.

He came and went. Perchance you wept a while
And then forgot.

Ah me! but he that left you with a smile
Forgets you not.
V
SHE rested by the Broken Brook,
She drank of Weary Well,
She
moved beyond my lingering look,
Ah, whither none can tell!
She came, she went. In other lands,
Perchance in fairer skies,
Her
hands shall cling with other hands,
Her eyes to other eyes.
She vanished. In the sounding town,
Will she remember too?
Will
she recall the eyes of brown
As I recall the blue?
VI
THE infinite shining heavens
Rose and I saw in the night

Uncountable angel stars
Showering sorrow and light.
I saw them distant as heaven,
Dumb and shining and dead,
And the
idle stars of the night
Were dearer to me than bread.
Night after night in my sorrow
The stars stood over the sea,
Till lo!
I looked in the dusk
And a star had come down to me.
VII
PLAIN as the glistering planets shine
When winds have cleaned the
skies,
Her love appeared, appealed for mine,
And wantoned in her
eyes.
Clear as the shining tapers burned
On Cytherea's shrine,
Those
brimming, lustrous beauties turned,
And called and conquered mine.
The beacon-lamp that Hero lit
No fairer shone on sea,
No plainlier
summoned will and wit,
Than hers encouraged me.

I thrilled to feel her influence near,
I struck my flag at sight.
Her
starry silence smote my ear
Like sudden drums at night.
I ran as, at the cannon's roar,
The troops the ramparts man -
As in
the holy house of yore
The willing Eli ran.
Here, lady, lo! that servant stands
You picked from passing men,

And should you need nor heart nor hands
He bows and goes again.
VIII
TO you, let snow and roses
And golden locks belong.
These are the
world's enslavers,
Let these delight the throng.
For her of duskier
lustre
Whose favour still I wear,
The snow be in her kirtle,
The
rose be in her hair!
The hue of highland rivers
Careering, full and cool,
From sable on
to golden,
From rapid on to pool -
The hue of heather-honey,
The
hue of honey-bees,
Shall tinge her golden shoulder,
Shall gild her
tawny knees.
IX
LET Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,
Beauty awake
from rest!
Let Beauty awake
For Beauty's sake
In the hour when
the birds awake in the brake
And the stars are bright in the west!
Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,
Awake in the
crimson eve!
In the day's dusk end
When the shades ascend,
Let
her wake to the kiss of a tender friend
To render again and receive!
X
I KNOW not how it is with you -
I love the first and last,
The whole
field of the present view,
The whole flow of the past.

One tittle of the things that are,
Nor you should change nor I -
One
pebble in our path - one star
In all our heaven of sky.
Our lives, and every day and hour,
One symphony appear:
One road,
one garden - every flower
And every bramble dear.
XI
I WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at
morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and
me
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.
I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white
flows the river and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your
linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at
night.
And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song
for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only
you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.
XII - WE HAVE LOVED OF YORE (To an air of Diabelli)
BERRIED brake and reedy island,
Heaven below, and only heaven
above,
Through the sky's inverted azure
Softly swam the boat that
bore our love.
Bright were your eyes as the day;
Bright ran the
stream,
Bright hung the sky above.
Days of April, airs of Eden,

How the glory died through golden hours,
And the shining moon
arising,
How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers!
Bright
were your eyes in the night:
We have lived, my love -
O, we have
loved, my love.
Frost has bound our flowing river,
Snow has whitened all our island
brake,
And beside the winter fagot
Joan and Darby doze and dream
and wake.
Still, in the river of dreams
Swims the boat of love -


Hark! chimes the falling oar!
And again in winter evens
When on
firelight dreaming fancy feeds,
In those ears of aged lovers
Love's
own river warbles in the reeds.
Love still