Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke X. Thro' the hubbub of the market I steal, a wasted frame, It crosses here, it crosses there, Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, The shadow still the same; And on my heavy eyelids My anguish hangs like shame. XI. Alas for her that met me, Came glimmering thro' the laurels In the garden by the turrets Of the old manorial hall. XII. Would the happy spirit descend, XIII. But the broad light glares and beats, And will not let me be; And I loathe the squares and streets, And the faces that one meets, Into some still cavern deep, There to weep, and weep, and weep BREAK, BREAK. [Poems 1842.] BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ. [Gedichtet 1861 (Mem. pg. 398); gedruckt in "Enoch Arden ETC.” 1864.] ALL along the valley, stream that flashest white, Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night, All along the valley, where thy waters flow, I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years ago. All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day, The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away; For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed, Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead, And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree, The voice of the dead was a living voice to me. THE SONG OF LOVE AND DEATH. SWEET is true love tho' given in vain, in vain; Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die. O HAPPY LARK. [Aus: "The Promise of May", 1882.] O HAPPY lark, that warblest high O brook, that brawlest merrily by O tower spiring to the sky, O Love and Life, how weary am I, FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL. [The Holy Grail etc., 1869.] FLOWER in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Aus: THE COMING OF ARTHUR (1869). BUT let me tell thee now another tale: Descending thro' the dismal night-a night In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps It seem'd in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof And gone as soon as seen. And then the two Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King! Free sky and stars: "And this same child," he said, Save on the further side; but when I met “Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky! Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows: |