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PART IX

PATHOS AND SORROW

TEARS, IDLE TEARS

TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depths of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge ;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

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.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (The Princess).

FIDELE

FEAR no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ;

Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone ;
Fear not slander, censure rash;

Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Cymbeline).

EVELYN HOPE

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed ;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower
Beginning to die, too, in the glass.

Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut,- no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name,

It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,

Duties enough and little cares;
And now was quiet, now astir,

Till God's hand beckoned unawares,

And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope?
What! your soul was pure and true;
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire, and dew;
And just because I was thrice as old,

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals,— naught beside ?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant as mighty to make
And creates the love to reward the love;
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed, it may be, for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few ;
Much is to learn and much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come

--

at last it will

When, Evelyn Hope, what is meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul are so pure and gay ?
Why your hair was amber I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red, -
And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;

Yet one thing

one in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me,
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;

My heart seemed full as it could hold,—

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So hush! I will give you this leaf to keep;

See, I shut it inside the sweet, cold hand.

There, that is our secret! go to sleep;

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

ROBERT BROWNING.

TO MARY IN HEAVEN

THOU lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,

Again thou usher'st in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

O Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of bilssful rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That sacred hour can I forget?
Can I forget the hallow'd grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity will not efface

Those records dear of transports past,

Thy image at our last embrace

-

Ah! little thought we 't was our last!

Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore,

O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;

The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twined am'rous round the raptured scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on ev'ry spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of wingèd day.
Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade !

Where is thy blissful place of rest?

Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

ROBERT BURNS.

AULD ROBIN GRAY

WHEN the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye's come hame, And a' the weary warld to rest are gane,

The waes o' my heart fall in showers frae my ee,

Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps sound by me.

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride,
But saving a crown he had naething else beside :

To mak' the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea,
And the crown and the pound thy were baith for me.

He had nae been gane a twalmonth and a day,

When my faither brak his arm, and the cow was stown away;
My mither she fell sick, and my Jamie was at sea,
And auld Robin Gray cam' a courting me.

My faither couldna work, my mither couldna spin,

I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win;
Aud Rob maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in his ee,
Said, "Jeanie, for their sakes, will ye no marry me?"

My heart it said nay, and I look'd for Jamie back,
But the wind it blew hard, and the ship was a wrack
The ship was a wrack, why didna Jamie dee?
Or why was I spared to cry, Wae 's me ?

My faither urged me sair, my mither did na speak,
But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break :
They gi'ed him my hand, though my heart was in the sea,
And so Robin Gray he was gudeman to me!

I had na been a wife a week but only four,
When mournful as I sat on the stane at my door,

I saw my Jamie's wraith, for I could na think it he,
Till he said, "I'm come hame, love, to marry thee.

Sair, sair did we greet, and mickle did we say,
We took but ae kiss, and tore oursels away:
I wish I were dead, but I am no like to dee,
Oh, why was I born to say, Wae 's me ?

I

gang like a ghaist, but I care na much to spin; I dare na think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin; So I will do my best a gude wife to be,

For auld Robin Gray he is kind to me.

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LADY ANNE BARNARD.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried:
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow.

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that 's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ;

But little he 'll reck if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

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