When men were all asleep the snow came flying, |
In large white flakes falling on the city brown, |
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, |
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; |
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; |
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: |
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; |
Hiding difference, making unevenness even, |
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. |
All night it fell, and when full inches seven |
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, |
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; |
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness |
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: |
The eye marvelled - marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; |
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; |
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, |
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. |
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, |
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze |
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing; |
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; |
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder!' |
'O look at the trees!' they cried, 'O look at the trees!' |
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, |
Following along the white deserted way, |
A country company long dispersed asunder: |
When now already the sun, in pale display |
Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below |
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. |
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; |
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, |
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: |
But even for them awhile no cares encumber |
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, |
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber |
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken. |
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The sea is calm to-night. |
The tide is full, the moon lies fair |
Upon the straits; - on the French coast the light |
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, |
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. |
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! |
Only, from the long line of spray |
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, |
Listen! you hear the grating roar |
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, |
At their return, up the high strand, |
Begin, and cease, and then again begin, |
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring |
The eternal note of sadness in. |
Sophocles long ago |
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought |
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow |
Of human misery; we |
Find also in the sound a thought, |
Hearing it by this distant northern sea. |
The Sea of Faith |
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore |
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. |
But now I only hear |
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, |
Retreating, to the breath |
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear |
And naked shingles of the world. |
Ah, love, let us be true |
To one another! for the world, which seems |
To lie before us like a land of dreams, |
So various, so beautiful, so new, |
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, |
Nor certitude, not peace, nor help for pain; |
And we are here as on a darkling plain |
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, |
Where ignorant armies clash by night. |
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Come into the garden, Maud, |
For the black bat, night, has flown, |
Come into the garden, Maud, |
I am here at the gate alone ; |
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, |
And the musk of the rose is blown. |
For a breeze of morning moves, |
And the planet of Love is on high, |
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves |
On a bed of daffodil sky, |
To faint in the light of the sun she loves, |
To faint in his light, and to die. |
All night have the roses heard |
The flute, violin, bassoon ; |
All night has the casement jessamine stirred |
To the dancers dancing in tune ; |
Till a silence fell with the waking bird, |
And a hush with the setting moon. |
I said to the lily, ‘There is but one |
With whom she has heart to be gay. |
When will the dancers leave her alone ? |
She is weary of dance and play.’ |
Now half to the setting moon are gone, |
And half to the rising day ; |
Low on the sand and loud on the stone |
The last wheel echoes away. |
I said to the rose, ‘The brief night goes |
In babble and revel and wine. |
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, |
For one that will never be thine ? |
But mine, but mine,’ so I sware to the rose, |
‘For ever and ever, mine.’ |
And the soul of the rose went into my blood, |
As the music clashed in the hall ; |
And long by the garden lake I stood, |
For I heard your rivulet fall |
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, |
Our wood, that is dearer than all ; |
From the meadow your walks have left so sweet |
That whenever a March-wind sighs |
He sets the jewel-print of your feet |
In violets blue as your eyes, |
To the woody hollows in which we meet |
And the valleys of Paradise. |
The slender acacia would not shake |
One long milk-bloom on the tree ; |
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake |
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea ; |
But the rose was awake all night for your sake, |
Knowing your promise to me ; |
The lilies and roses were all awake, |
They sighed for the dawn and thee. |
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, |
Come hither, the dances are done, |
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, |
Queen lily and rose in one ; |
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, |
To the flowers, and be their sun. |
There has fallen a splendid tear |
From the passion-flower at the gate. |
She is coming, my dove, my dear ; |
She is coming, my life, my fate ; |
The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near ;’ |
And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late ;’ |
The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear ;’ |
And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’ |
She is coming, my own, my sweet, |
Were it ever so airy a tread, |
My heart would hear her and beat, |
Were it earth in an earthy bed ; |
My dust would hear her and beat, |
Had I lain for a century dead ; |
Would start and tremble under her feet, |
And blossom in purple and red. |
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