446

445

WELCOME, WELCOME!

ELCOME, welcome do I sing,

WELC

far more welcome than the spring;

he that parteth from you never
shall enjoy a spring for ever.

Love that to your voice is near,

breaking from your ivory pale,
need not walk abroad to hear
the delightful nightingale.
Love that looks still on your eyes,
though the winter have begun
to benumb our arteries,

shall not want the summer's sun.

Love that still may see your cheeks,
where all rareness still reposes,

is a fool if e'er he seeks

other lilies, other roses.

Love, to whom your soft lip yields,
and perceives your breath in kissing;
all the odours of the fields

never, never, shall be missing.
Love that question would anew
what fair Eden was of old,
let him rightly study you
and a brief of that behold.

W. BROWNE

REPINING

GENTLE river! gentle river!

wilt thou thus complain for ever?
Why, when nought obstructs thy flow,
dost thou sigh, and murmuring low
strike my ear with sounds of woe?
is it that some sandbank's force
for an instant stay'd thy course?
has some shoal or rugged rock
stemm'd thy waves with sudden shock?

wail no longer, gentle river!

these are past and gone for ever;

yonder is the wish'd-for sea,

home of rest and peace for thee!

Why does man, when all is shining,
dim the brightness by repining?

why, when no dark cloud hangs o'er him,
dreads he still some rock before him,
weeps o'er woes he long has past,
mourns his joys which did not last?
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor mourn,
yonder is the wish'd-for bourn,
home of peace and rest for thee,-
Death and Immortality!

SIR T. CROFT

447 HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND

O restless Cromwell could not cease

Sin the inglorious arts of peace,

but through adventurous war
urgèd his active star:

and like the three-fork'd lightning first,
breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
did thorough his own side
his fiery way divide:

Then burning through the air he went
and palaces and temples rent;
and Cæsar's head at last
did through his laurels blast.

'Tis madness to resist or blame
the face of angry heaven's flame;
and if we would speak true,
much to the Man is due

who, from his private gardens, where
he lived reservèd and austere

(as if his highest plot

to plant the bergamot)

could by industrious valour climb
to ruin the great work of time,

and cast the Kingdoms old
into another mould.

448

Though Justice against Fate complain,
and plead the ancient Rights in vain—
but those do hold or break

as men are strong or weak,

A. MARVELL

THE FIRST OF APRIL

MINDFUL of disaster past,

and shrinking at the northern blast,

the sleety storm returning still,

the morning hoar, and evening chill,
reluctant comes the timid Spring.
Scarce a bee with airy ring

murmurs the blossom'd boughs around,
that clothe the garden's southern bound:
scarce a sickly straggling flower
decks the rough castle's rifted tower:
scarce the hardy primrose peeps
from the dark dell's entangled steeps:
o'er the field of waving broom
slowly shoots the golden bloom:
and, but by fits, the furze-clad dale
tinctures the transitory gale.

While from the shrubbery's naked maze,
where the vegetable blaze

of Flora's brightest 'broidery shone,
every chequered charm is flown.
The swallow, for a moment seen,
skims in haste the village green;
from the gray moor, on feeble wing,
the screaming plovers idly spring;
the butterfly gay-painted soon
explores awhile the tepid noon;
and fondly trusts its tender dyes
to fickle suns and flattering skies.

T. WARTON

449

FAL

MODERN JERUSALEM

ALL'N is thy throne, O Israel!
silence is o'er thy plains:

thy dwellings all lie desolate,
thy children weep in chains,

450

where are the dews that fed thee,

on Etham's barren shore?

That fire from heaven, which led thee,
now lights thy path no more.
Lord! thou didst love Jerusalem-
once she was all Thy own:
her love Thy fairest heritage:
her power Thy glory's throne:
till evil came, and blighted
Thy long-loved olive-tree:-
and Salem's shrines were lighted
for other gods than Thee.
Then sunk the star of Solyma,
then pass'd her glory's day,
like heath that in the wilderness
the wild wind whirls away.
Silent and waste her bowers,
where once the mighty trod,
and sunk those guilty towers,
where Baal reigned as God.
'Go' said the Lord-'ye Conquerors,
steep in her blood your swords:
and raze to earth her battlements,
for they are not the Lord's!'

T. MOORE

TO A SKYLARK

HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!

bird thou never wert,

that from heaven, or near it
pourest thy full heart

in profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

from the earth thou springest

like a cloud of fire;

the blue deep thou wingest,

and singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

of the sunken sun

o'er which clouds are brightening,

thou dost float and run,

like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

451

thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:

keen as are the arrows

of that silver sphere, whose intense lamp narrows

in the white dawn clear

until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

when thy voice is loud,

as, when night is bare,

from one lonely cloud

the moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over

flowed.

What thou art we know not;

what is most like thee?

from rainbow clouds there flow not

drops so bright to see

as from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

With thy clear keen joyance

languor cannot be:

shadow of annoyance

never came near thee:

thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Better than all measures

of delightful sound, better than all treasures

that in books are found,

thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
that thy brain must know,
such harmonious madness

from my lips would flow

the world should listen then, as I am listening now!

P. B. SHELLEY