[The Germ 1850. April 1849.]
WHERE sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain,
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break,
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.
[New Poems 1896. 12 March 1849.]
SWEET sweet sound of distant waters, falling On a parched and thirsty plain:
Sweet sweet song of soaring skylark, calling On the sun to shine again:
Perfume of the rose, only the fresher
For past fertilizing rain:
Pearls amid the sea, a hidden treasure
For some daring hand to gain:-
Better, dearer than all these
Is the earth beneath the trees:
Of a much more priceless worth
Is the old brown common earth.
Little snow-white lamb, piteously bleating
For thy mother far away:
Saddest sweetest nightingale, retreating
With thy sorrow from the day:
Weary fawn whom night has overtaken,
From the herd gone quite astray:
Dove whose nest was rifled and forsaken
In the budding month of May:-
Roost upon the leafy trees,
Lie on earth and take your ease:
Death is better far than birth:
You shall turn again to earth.
Listen to the never-pausing murmur
Of the waves that fret the shore:
See the ancient pine that stands the firmer
For the storm-shock that it bore:
And the moon her silver chalice filling
With light from the great sun's store:
And the stars which deck our temple's ceiling
As the flowers deck its floor:
Look and hearken while you may,
For these things shall pass away:
All these things shall fail and cease:
Let us wait the end in peace.
Let us wait the end in peace, for truly
That shall cease which was before:
Let us see our lamps are lighted, duly
Fed with oil nor wanting more:
Let us pray while yet the Lord will hear us,
For the time is almost o'er:
Yea, the end of all is very near us:
Yea, the Judge is at the door.
Let us pray now, while we may:
It will be too late to pray
When the quick and dead shall all
Rise at the last trumpet-call.
ONE CERTAINTY.
[Goblin Market etc. 1862. 2 June 1849.]
VANITY of vanities, the Preacher saith,
All things are vanity. The eye and ear Cannot be filled with what they see and hear. Like early dew, or like the sudden breath Of wind, or like the grass that withereth, Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear: So little joy hath he, so little cheer,
Till all things end in the long dust of death.
To-day is still the same as yesterday,
To-morrow also even as one of them;
And there is nothing new under the sun: Until the ancient race of Time be run, The old thorns shall grow out of the old stem, And morning shall be cold and twilight grey.
SLEEP, let me sleep, for I am sick of care;
Sleep, let me sleep, for my pain wearies me.
Shut out the light; thicken the heavy air
With drowsy incense; let a distant stream
Of music lull me, languid as a dream,
Soft as the whisper of a summer sea.
Pluck me no rose that groweth on a thorn,
Nor myrtle white and cold as snow in June, Fit for a virgin on her marriage morn: But bring me poppies brimmed with sleepy death, And ivy choking what it garlandeth,
And primroses that open to the moon.
Listen, the music swells into a song,
A simple song I loved in days of yore; The echoes take it up and up along The hills, and the wind blows it back again.Peace, peace, there is a memory in that strain Of happy days that shall return no more.
Oh peace! your music wakeneth old thought,
But not old hope that made my life so sweet,
Only the longing that must end in nought.
Have patience with me, friends, a little while:
For soon, where you shall dance and sing and smile,
My quickened dust may blossom at your feet.
Sweet thought that I may yet live and grow green,
That leaves may yet spring from the withered root,
And buds and flowers and berries half unseen.
Then, if you haply muse upon the past,
Say this: Poor child, she has her wish at last;
Barren through life, but in death bearing fruit.
"Ye have forgotten the exhortation."
COME, blessed sleep, most full, most perfect, come:
Come, sleep, if so I may forget the whole;
Forget my body and forget my soul,
Forget how long life is and troublesome.
Come, happy sleep, to soothe my heart or numb,
Arrest my weary spirit or control:
Till light be dark to me from pole to pole,
And winds and echoes and low songs be dumb.
Come sleep, and lap me into perfect calm,
Lap me from all the world and weariness:
Come, secret sleep, with thine unuttered psalm,
Safe sheltering in a hidden cool recess:
Come, heavy dreamless sleep, and close and press Upon mine eyes thy fingers dropping balm.
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