VII. Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, To laugh as he sits by the river, 40 The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,— SONNETS CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON I think we are too ready with complaint Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow faint 5 To muse upon eternity's constraint Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope For a few days consumed in loss and taint? 10 And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road, THE PROSPECT Methinks we do as fretful children do, To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's And shut the sky and landscape from their view: 5 And thus, alas, since God the maker drew A mystic separation 'twixt those twain, The life beyond us, and our souls in pain, We miss the prospect which we are called unto By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong, 10 O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath, And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong That so, as life's appointment issueth, Thy vision may be clear to watch along WORK What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil; Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 5 God did anoint thee with His odorous oil, To wrestle, not to reign; and He assigns All thy tears over, like pure crystallines, For younger fellow-workers of the soil To wear for amulets. So others shall 10 Take patience, labour, to their heart and hand, From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer, And God's grace fructify through thee to all. The least flower, with a brimming cup may stand, And share its dew-drop with another near. (From Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1850) I. I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: 5 And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 10 So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; The silver answer rang,-" Not Death, but Love." VI. Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Of individual life, I shall command Without the sense of that which I forboreThy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine 10 With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine XXXV. If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, 5 When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, 10 To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove; For grief indeed is love and grief beside. XLIII. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 10 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Charles kingsley 1819-1875 SONG (From The Saint's Tragedy, 1848) Oh! that we two were Maying Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; In the shade of the whispering trees. 5 Oh! that we two sat dreaming On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down Over river and mead and town. Oh! that we two lay sleeping 10 In our nest in the churchyard sod, With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, 5 THE THREE FISHERS (1851) Three fishers went sailing away to the West, Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town, For men must work, and women must weep, Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, 10 They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, 15 Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands For those who will never come home to the town; |