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I. VOL. I.

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The verse has been extracted from prose text in this volume.

6

['Tis a dull sight]

'Tis a dull sight
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, oh! sighing.
When such a time cometh,
I do retire
Into an old room
Beside a bright fire:
Oh, pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings—
Oh, drearily sings!
I never look out
Nor attend to the blast;
For all to be seen
Is the leaves falling fast:
Falling, falling!
But close at the hearth,
Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
And chivalry—
Gallant chivalry!
Then with an old friend
I talk of our youth—
How 'twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth:
But gladsome, gladsome!
7

Or to get merry
We sing some old rhyme,
That made the wood ring again
In summer time—
Sweet summer time!
Then go we to smoking,
Silent and snug:
Nought passes between us,
Save a brown jug—
Sometimes!
And sometimes a tear
Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
So merrily—
So merrily!
And ere to bed
Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
We kneel on the knee,
Praying together!
Thus, then, live I,
Till, 'mid all the gloom,
By heaven! the bold sun
Is with me in the room,
Shining, shining!
Then the clouds part,
Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive,
And the meadows are green!
I jump up, like mad,
Break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows,
The meadows again!
247

[When Yúsúf from his Father's House was torn]

When Yúsúf from his Father's House was torn,
His Father's Heart was utterly forlorn;
And, like a Pipe with but one note, his Tongue
Still nothing but the name of Yúsúf rung.
Then down from Heaven's Branches came the Bird
Of Heaven, and said “God wearies of that Word.
Hast thou not else to do, and else to say?”
So Yacúb's lips were sealed from that Day.
But one Night in a Vision, far away
His Darling in some alien Home he saw,
And stretch'd his Arms forth; and between the Awe
Of God's Displeasure, and the bitter Pass
Of Love and Anguish, sigh'd forth an Alas!
And stopp'd—But when he woke The Angel came,
And said, ‘Oh, faint of purpose! Though the Name
Of that Belovèd were not utter'd by
Thy Lips, it hung sequester'd in that Sigh.’
248

[A Saint there was who threescore Years and ten]

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Square brackets indicate text which has been supplied by Professor Cowell.

A Saint there was who threescore Years and ten
In holy Meditation among Men
Had spent, but, wishing, ere he came to close
With God, to meet him in complete Repose,
Withdrew into the Wilderness, where he
Set up his Dwelling in an agèd Tree
Whose hollow Trunk his Winter Shelter made,
And whose green branching Arms his Summer Shade.
And like himself a Nightingale one Spring
Making her Nest above his Head would sing
So sweetly that her pleasant Music stole
Between the Saint and his severer Soul,
And made him sometimes [heedless of his] Vows
Listening his little Neighbour in the Boughs.
Until one Day a sterner Music woke
The sleeping Leaves, and through the Branches spoke—
“What! is the Love between us two begun
And waxing till we Two were nearly One,
For three score Years of Intercourse unstirr'd
Of Men, now shaken by a little Bird;
And such a precious Bargain, and so long
A making, [put in peril] for a Song?”
250

[Slow spreads the Gloom my Soul desires]

Slow spreads the Gloom my Soul desires,
The Sun from India's Shore retires:
To Orwell's Bank, with temperate ray—
Home of my Youth!—he leads the Day:
Oh Banks to me for ever dear,
Oh Stream whose Murmur meets my Ear;
Oh all my Hopes of Bliss abide
Where Orwell mingles with the Tide.
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