THE ROSE IN OCTOBER. LATE and sweet, too sweet, too late! What nightingale will sing to thee? The empty nest, the shivering tree, The dead leaves by the garden gate, And cawing crows for thee will wait, O sweet and late! Where wert thou when the soft June nights Stay, there's a gleam of winter wheat A very heaven of stillness broods; And through the mellow sun's noon heat, O late and sweet! MARY TOWNLEY. DOVER BEACH. OHE 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 Where the ebb meets the moon-blanch'd sand, Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring 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 furl'd; But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, MATTHEW ARNOLD. N BURDENS. 3RE sorrows hard to bear,-the ruin And summer slain, and song-birds mute, And skies of snow and bitter air? But ah the burden, the delight Of dreadful joys! Noon opening wide, Golden and great; the gulfs of night, Fair deaths, and rent veils cast aside, Strong soul to strong soul rendered up, And silence filling like a cup. EDWARD DOWDEN. ON THE SHORE. HE angry sunset fades from out the west, sea; Wild waves be hushed and moan into your rest, Soon will all earth be sleeping, why not ye? Far off the heavens deaden o'er with sleep, But ever, ever, moan ye by the shore, While all your trouble surges in my breast; AUGUSTA WEBSTER. |