Saying, "You will live to see So I never quite despair, Nor let hope or courage fail; And some day, when skies are fair, Up the bay my ships will sail. I can buy then all I need, Prints to look at, books to read, Horses, wines, and works of art, Every thing except a heart: That is lost, that is lost. Once when I was pure and young, Or a wrinkle creased my brow, FANTASY. BREAK, Fantasy, from thy cave of cloud, And spread thy purple wings, And, though it be a waking dream, To all the senses here, And fall like sleep upon their eyes, Or music in their ear. BEN JONSON. PHOENIX AND TURTLE DOVE. LET the bird of loudest lay, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Let the priest in surplice white And thou treble-dated crow, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. So they loved, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain. Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance, and no space was seen "Twixt the turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine, That the turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled, That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, That it cried, How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love hath reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain. Whereupon it made this threne To the Phoenix and the dove, Co-supremes and stars of love; As chorus to their tragic scene. THRENOS. BEAUTY, truth, and rarity, Death is now the Phoenix' nest; Leaving no posterity:- Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. To this urn let those repair COMPLIMENT TO QUEEN ELIZABETH. My gentle Puck, come hither, thou remember'st Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music. That very time, I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell; It fell upon a little western flower, — Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it Love-in-idle Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice: Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes, And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plaits the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes. SHAKSPEARE: Romeo and Juliet. SONG FROM GYPSIES' METAMORPHOSES. THE Owl is abroad, the bat, the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain; The ant and the mole sit both in a hole; And frog peeps out o' the fountain; The dogs they bay, and the timbrels play; The spindle now is a-turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled; But all the sky is a-burning. THE faery beam upon you, And the stars to glister on you, A moon of light In the noon of night, Then to the noblest princes fellow might he be. WARTON: Little Garden of Roses, KUBLA KHAN. IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incensebearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Infolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demonlover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophecying war! The shadow of the dome of Floated midway on the waves; measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer To such a deep delight 'twould That with music loud and long, And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair, Every thing that heard him play, Hung their heads, and then lay by. |