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Sun & Shade

21

A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of Sun or shade;
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toyl,
Daily in the common Prison else enjoyn'd me,
Where I, a Prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air imprison'd also, close and damp,
Unwholsom draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire. . .

22

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure :--
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

23

Garden & Forest

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

And this was on the sixtë morwe of May,
Which May had peinted with his softë shoures,
This gardin ful of levës and of floures :—-
And craft of mannes hand so curiously
Arrayed had this gardin trewely,
That never was ther gardin of swich prys
But-if it were the veray Paradys.

The odour of flourës and the freshë sight
Wold han maad any hertë for to light
That ever was born, but-if to gret siknesse
Or to gret sorwë held it in distresse,
So ful it was of beauty with plesance . .

...

24

We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam,

The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep

The smile of Heaven lay;

Autumn Quiet

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,

And soothed by every azure breath,
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep

The ocean woods may be. . .

25

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Solitude

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fumes of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,

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;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

26

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake-water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Retreats

27

28

WHEN winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;

The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind. But when the roar
Of Ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of earth and its deep woods, where interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.

Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea,
Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen.-But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.

COME sit aneath this pinetree, whose lofty tressèd crown
Sighs, as her tufty sprays stir to the west wind's kiss:
And with the babbling waters my flute thy care shall drown,
And lull thy dreamy eyelids to sweet forgetful bliss.

29

Marcus

.. Men seek out retreats for themselves, cottages in the country, lonely seashores and mountains. Thou too The art disposed to hanker greatly after such things: and emperor yet all this is the very commonest stupidity; for it is in thy power, whenever thou wilt, to retire into thy- reproaching self: and nowhere is there any place whereto a man may retire quieter and more free from politics than his

Aurelius is

himself.

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