How wonderful in a bereavèd ear
The Northern wind: how strange the summer night,
The exhaling earth to those that vainly love.
Out of our sadness have we made the world
So beautiful; the sea sighs in our brain,
And in our heart the yearning of the moon.
To all this sorrow was I born, and since
Out of a human womb I came, I am
Not eager to forego it: I would scorn
To elude the heaviness and take the joy.
For pain came with the sap, pangs with the bloom; This is the sting, the wonder. Yet should I
Linger beside thee in felicity
Sliding with open eyes through liquid bliss
For ever, still I must grow old. Ah, I
Should ail beside thee, Apollo, and should note
With eyes that would not be, but yet are dim
Ever so slight a change from day to day
In thee, my husband; watch thee nudge thyself
To little offices that once were sweet,
Slow where thou once wert swift, remembering
To kiss those lips which once thou could'st not leave.
I should expect thee by the western bay
Faded, not sure of thee, with desperate smiles
And pitiful devices of my dress
Or fashion of my hair. Thou would'st grow kind,
Most bitter to a woman that was loved,
I must ensnare thee to my arms, and touch
Thy pity, to but hold thee to my heart.
Mira sonat Boreas, orbi cum percutit aurem ;
seu quis amat frustra, miranda silentia noctis
aestivae, quique halat odor tellure recenti.
si mare suspirat, si Luna cupidine vana
pallet, ficta vides nostri simulacra doloris.
tristitiae heredem tantae me mater ad auras
edidit, humanos nolentem evadere casus ;
gaudia praeripere et curam evitare puderet.
angit enim adscendens sucus, flos angit in ortu;
attonitos iuvat ipse dolor: sin lumine aperto
carpere delicias irrupta pace beata
praetulerim, mergique mera dulcedine tecum
aeternum; prope te comitem tamen aegra senescam, marcescant oculi invitae, sed cernere possint
mutari inque dies sensim decrescere amorem coniugis officiis fungi tam dulcibus olim
vix te ipsum accingas; videam te, Phoebe, morantem, qui modo promptus eras: deberi basia labris
in mentem revoces, modo quae linquenda negabas.
Hesperios iuxta fines diffisa marito
exspectem, risu commendans ora coacto
pallentesque genas, cultu placitura comisque
dispositis ex arte nova-miserabilis,—at tu
mitescas—pro triste nefas,—qui nuper amasti.
men circumfusis captum irretire lacertis
pectus, ut amplexu fovear miserantis inan
'CHORUS OF HOME-COMING SHIPS'
From the uttermost bound
Of the wind and the foam,
From creek and from sound,
We are hastening home.
We are laden with treasure
From ransacked seas,
To charm your leisure,
To grace your ease;
We have trodden the billows,
And tracked the ford,
To soften your pillows
To heap your board.
The hills have been shattered,
The forest scattered,
Our white sails tattered
To swell your hoard.
Is it blossom or fruit or
Seed ye crave?
The land is your suitor,
The sea your slave.
We have raced with the swallows,
And threaded the floes
Where the walrus wallows
Mid melting snows;
Sought regions torrid
And realms of sleet,
To gem your forehead,
To swathe your feet.
And behold now we tender
With pennons unfurled,
For your comfort and splendour,
The wealth of the world.
Man, thoughtless man, whose moments quickly fly,
Wakes but to sleep again, and lives to die.
But when this fleeting, mortal life is o'er
Man dies to live, and lives to die no more.
Sir A. Alison (Epitaph on his father
QUI MARI POTITUR EUM RERUM POTIRI
Ultimus oceani qua terminus obstitit undis,
candida qua Borea spuma furente salit,
eque sinu multo longisque recessibus omnes
pandimus ad ventos vela reversa domum.
direpti pelagi spoliis oneramur et auro,
sit tibi cessanti gratior unde quies.
aequoris extremi rostro sulcavimus undas,
fecimus incertam per vada caeca viam,
ut positum mollis sternat tibi culcita lectum,
et varias iactet mensa onerata dapes.
divitias montis penetralia rupta dederunt,
eversum didicit munera ferre nemus.
candidaque immodici lacerarunt carbasa venti,
quo tibi maiores accumulentur opes.
an flores segetesque novas an semina quaeris ?
unda tibi servit caerula-servit ager.
nos celeri cursu non exsuperavit hirundo,
per glaciem nostrum se sinuavit iter.
volvere qua gaudet se vacca marina per aequor,
exiguis qua nix solibus icta perit.
vidimus et positas Cancri sub sidere terras,
vidimus aspersas grandinis imbre plagas,
ut tibi gemmatum frontem diadema coronet,
ut foveat vinctos calceus iste pedes.
inque tuos ferimus signis volitantibus usus,
luxuriae quidquid maximus orbis habet.
Stultus homo es, cui tempus abit breve: somnia pellis, ut repetas; vitam iam moriturus agis.
at tibi cum fugitiva cito pede fluxerit aetas,
ut vivas moreris, vitaque morte caret.
And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again,
There rode an armed warrior to the doors.
A murmuring whisper thro' the nunnery ran,
Then on a sudden a cry, "The King." She sat
Stiff-stricken, listening; but when armed feet
Thro' the long gallery from the outer doors
Rang coming, prone from off her seat she fell,
And grovell'd with her face against the floor;
There with her milk-white arms and shadowy hair
She made her face a darkness from the King:
And in the darkness heard his armed feet
Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice,
Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's
Denouncing judgment, but tho' changed, the King's:
"Liest thou here so low, the child of one
I honour'd, happy, dead before thy shame?
Well is it that no child is born of thee.
The children born of thee are sword and fire,
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws,
The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts
Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea."
And while he spake to these his helm was lower'd,
To which for crest the golden dragon clung
Of Britain; so she did not see his face,
Which then was as an angel's, but she saw,
Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights,
The Dragon of the great Pendragonship
Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire.
And even then he turn'd; and more and more
The moving vapour rolling round the King,
Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it,
Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray
And grayer, till himself became as mist
Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom.
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