ROSE AYLMER

Ан what avails the sceptred race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,

A night of memories and of sighs

I consecrate to thee.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

EPIGRAM: STAND CLOSE AROUND,
YE STYGIAN SET

STAND close around, ye Stygian set,
With Dirce in one boat conveyed!

Or Charon, seeing, may forget

That he is old and she shade.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, LIKE
THE NIGHT

I

SHE walks in Beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

II

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

III

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY

I

LORD BYRON.

THE fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? -

II

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

AUTUMN: A DIRGE

I

THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,

And the Year

On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying.

Come, Months, come away,

From November to May,

In your saddest array;

Follow the bier

Of the dead cold Year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

II

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling, The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the Year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each

Come, Months, come away;

Put on white, black, and gray;
Let your light sisters play
Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead cold Year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

SONNET: WHY DID I LAUGH

TO-NIGHT?

WHY did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell:
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once.
Heart! Thou and I are here, sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain.
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;
Yet would I on this very midnight cease,

And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed,
But Death intenser - Death is Life's high meed.
JOHN KEATS.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S

HOMER

MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

TO AUTUMN

JOHN KEATS.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves

run,

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;