5 10 Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view; Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers, All that ever was 15 Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine ! I have never heard Praise of love or wine 20 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt, 25 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. TO A SKYLARK What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields or waves or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? 37 What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 5 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. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, 10 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 15 We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, That in books are found, 5 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground. Teach me half the gladness From my lips would flow, 10 The world should listen then, as I am listening now! Ozymandias I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 20 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: "LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT" 39 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN ENGLAND, 1801-1890 "Lead, Kindly Light" Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom, The night is dark, and I am far from home; Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou Shouldst lead me on; I loved to choose and see my path; but now I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, So long Thy power has blest me, sure it still O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till The night is gone, And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile! 10 15 EIGHTH YEAR-SECOND HALF ALFRED TENNYSON ENGLAND, 1809-1892 Song of the Brook I come from haunts of coot and hern, By thirty hills I hurry down, Till last by Philip's farm I flew, To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, I chatter over stony ways 40 |