III. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,25 While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 30 And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI (1820) I. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, The sedge is wither'd from the lake, II. 5 Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, 10 III. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; Fast withereth too. IV. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a faery's child; 15 Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. 20 V. I set her on my pacing steed, VI. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. VII. 25 She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew; And sure in language strange she said, I love thee true. 30 VIII. She took me to her elfin grot, And there she gaz'd and sighed deep; And there I shut her wild sad eyesSo kissed to sleep. IX. And there we slumber'd on the moss, And there I dream'd, ah woe betide, 35 The latest dream I ever dream'd, On the cold hill side. 40 X. I saw pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; XI. I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom, On the cold hill side. XII. 45 And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake SONNETS ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER (Written 1816) XI. Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, That deep-brow'd Homer rul'd as his demesne; Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 10 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men SONNET (June, 1816) To one who has been long in city pent, And open face of heaven,-to breathe a prayer 10 Catching the notes of Philomel,—an eye XV. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET (Written December 30th, 1816) The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; 5 That is the Grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 10 The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, LAST SONNET (Written on a Blank Page in Shakespeare's Poems, Facing "A Lover's Complaint") (Written 1820) Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art— Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, 5 The moving waters at their priestlike task 10 Of snow upon the mountains and the moorsNo-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, James Henry Leigh hunt 1784-1859 TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET (1816) Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, |