Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day,
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air blow soft, mount larks aloft
To give my Love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale sing,
To give my Love good-morrow;
To give my Love good-morrow
Notes from them both I'll borrow.
Wake from thy nest, Robin-redbreast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill, let music shrill
Give my fair Love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow !
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves
Sing my fair Love good-morrow;
To give my Love good-morrow
Sing, birds, in every furrow!
PERSUASIONS TO JOY: A SONG
If the quick spirits in your eye
Now languish and anon must die;
If every sweet and every grace
Must fly from that forsaken face;
Then, Celia, let us reap our joys
Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys.
Or if that golden fleece must grow
For ever free from aged snow;
If those bright suns must know no shade,
Nor your fresh beauties ever fade;
Then fear not, Celia, to bestow
What, still being gather'd, still must grow.
Thus either Time his sickle brings
In vain, or else in vain his wings.
Upon my lap my sovereign sits
And sucks upon my breast;
Meantime his love maintains my life
And gives my sense her rest.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
When thou hast taken thy repast,
Repose, my babe, on me;
So may thy mother and thy nurse
Thy cradle also be.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
I grieve that duty doth not work
All that my wishing would,
Because I would not be to thee
But in the best I should.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
Yet as I am, and as I may,
I must and will be thine,
Though all too little for thy self
Vouchsafing to be mine.
Sing lullaby, my little boy,
Sing lullaby, mine only joy!
SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Nevermore
Henceforward in thy shadow.
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore,
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
When do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, sɔlemnise
The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when, in the dusk hours (we two alone),
Close-kiss'd, and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, —
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perish'd leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?
If only in dreams may man be fully blest,
Is heav'n a dream? Is she I clasp'd a dream? Or stood she here even now where dewdrops gleam And miles of furze shine golden down the West? I seem to clasp her still — still on my breast
Her bosom beats, I see the blue eyes beam:
'I think she kiss'd these lips, for now they seem
Scarce mine: so hallow'd of the lips they press'd!
Yon thicket's breath can that be eglantine?
can they be morning's choristers? Can this be earth? Can these be banks of furze ? Like burning bushes fir'd of God they shine!
I seem to know them, though this body of mine
Pass'd into spirit at the touch of hers!
Theodore Watts-Dunton
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