From Chaucer to Tennyson Part 29

Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O death in life, the days that are no more.

THE Pa.s.sING OF ARTHUR.

[From _Morte D'Arthur_.]

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And G.o.d fulfills himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing G.o.d, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of G.o.d.

But now farewell: I am going a long way With these thou seest--if indeed I go-- (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns, And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away.

BUGLE SONG.

[From _The Princess_.]

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

Break, break, break On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play!

O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately s.h.i.+ps go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

PEACE OR WAR?

[From _Maud_.]

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, When the poor are hovelled and hustled together, each s.e.x, like swine, When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie; Peace in her vineyard--yes!--but a company forges the wine.

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife, While chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread, And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life.

And Sleep must lie down armed, for the villainous centre-bits Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights, While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, as he sits To pestle a poisoned poison behind his crimson lights.

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones, Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea, War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones.

STANZAS FROM IN MEMORIAM.

I envy not in any moods The captive void of n.o.ble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes His license in the fields of time, Unfettered by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth, But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whatever befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

SONG FROM MAUD.

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown; Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves, To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, ba.s.soon; All night has the cas.e.m.e.nt jessamine stirred To the dancers dancing in tune; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one With whom she has heart to be gay.

When will the dancers leave her alone?

She is weary of dance and play."

Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day; Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine," so I swore to the rose, "For ever and ever mine."

ROBERT BROWNING.

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.