And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. THE BROOK; AN IDYL. 'HERE, by this brook, we parted; I to the East And he for Italy-too late-too late: One whom the strong sons of the world despise; For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share, And mellow metres more than cent for cent; Nor could he understand how money breeds, Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make The thing that is not as the thing that is. O had he lived! In our schoolbooks we say, Of those that held their heads above the crowd, They flourish'd then or then; but life in him Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd And nothing perfect: yet the brook he loved, "O babbling brook," says Edmund in his rhyme, "Whence come you?" and the brook, why not replies. I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, By thirty hills I hurry down, by Philip's farm I flow the brimming river, may come and men may go, go on for ever. he died at Florence, quite worn out, Naples. There is Darnley bridge, ivy; there the river; and there p's farm where brook and river meet. atter over stony ways, n little sharps and trebles, ith many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, _nd many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, 'But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird; Old Philip; all about the fields you caught His weary daylong chirping, like the dry I wind about, and in and out, And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel With many a silvery waterbreak And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, 'O darling Katie Willows, his one child! |