The quick lark's closest-carolled strains, Life shoots and glances thro' your veins, And your words are seeming-bitter, Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter From excess of swift delight. III. Come down, come home, my Rosalind, From north to south; Will bind you fast in silken cords, And kiss away the bitter words From off your rosy mouth.* SONG. WHO can say Why To-day To-morrow will be yesterday? AUTHOR'S NOTE. - Perhaps the following lines may be allowed to stand as a separate poem; originally they made part of the text, where they were manifestly superfluous. MY Rosalind, my Rosalind, Bold, subtle, careless Rosalind, Is one of those who know no strife Of inward woe or outward fear; To whom the slope and stream of Life, In the ear, from far and near, Chimeth musically clear. My falcon-hearted Rosalind, Is one of those who cannot weep Fresh as the dawn before the day. I KNOW her by her angry air, Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair, Her rapid laughters wild and shrill, As laughters of the woodpecker From the bosom of a hill. 'Tis Kate she sayeth what she will: For Kate hath an unbridled tongue, Clear as the twanging of a harp. Her heart is like a throbbing star. Kate hath a spirit ever strung Like a new bow, and bright and sharp, As edges of the scymitar. Whence shall she take a fitting mate? For Kate no common love will feel; My woman-soldier, gallant Kate, As pure and true as blades of steel. Kate saith"the world is void of might." Kate saith "the men are gilded flies." Kate snaps her fingers at my vows; Kate will not hear of lovers' sighs. I would I were an arméd knight, Far famed for well-won enterprise, And wearing on my swarthy brows The garland of new-wreathed emprise : For in a moment I would pierce The blackest files of clanging fight, And strongly strike to left and right, In dreaming of my lady's eyes. Oh! Kate loves well the bold and Grew to his strength among his deserts cold; When even to Moscow's cupolas were rolled The growing murmurs of the Polish war! Now must your noble anger blaze out more Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan, The Moslem myriads fell, and fled beforeThan when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan; Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore Boleslas drove the Pomeranian. SONNET ON THE RESULT OF THE LATE RUSSIAN INVASION OF POLAND. How long, O God, shall men be ridden down, And trampled under by the last and least Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, though her sacred blood doth drown The fields; and out of every mouldering town Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased, Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some new crown: Who killed the girls and thrilled the boys With dandy pathos when you wrote! A Lion, you, that made a noise, And shook a mane en papillotes. And once you tried the Muses too; But men of long-enduring hopes, An Artist, Sir, should rest in Art, Is more than all poetic fame. But you, Sir, you are hard to please; With moral breadth of temperament. RISE, Britons, rise, if manhood be not dead; The world's last tempest darkens overhead; The Pope has bless'd him; The Church caress'd him; He triumphs; may be we shall stand alone. Britons, guard your own. His ruthless host is bought with plunder'd gold, By lying priests the peasants' votes controll'd. Read by Mr. John Forster at a dinner given to Mr. Macready, March 1, 1851, on his retirement from the stage. The Examiner, 1852. |