Revenge

113

I WISH I were where Helen lies,
Night and day on me she cries:
O that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirconnell lea!

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
And died to succour me!

O think na ye my heart was sair,

When my Love dropt and spak nae mair?
There did she swoon wi' meikle care,

On fair Kirconnell lea.

As I went down the waterside

guide,

None but my foe to be my
None but my foe to be my guide,

On fair Kirconnell lea;

I lighted down, my sword did draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma',
I hacked him in pieces sma',

For her sake that died for me.
O Helen fair beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my heart for evermair
Until the day I dee.

O that I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries;
Out of my bed she bids me rise,
Says, Haste and come to me.'
O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
If I were with thee I were blest,

6

The Wild Stream

Where thou lies low, and takes thy rest
On fair Kirconnell lea.

I wish my grave were growing green,
A winding sheet drawn owre my een,
And I in Helen's arms lying

On fair Kirconnell lea.

I wish I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries:
And I am weary of the skies

For her sake that died for me.

I 14

115

O wild and desert stream!..

Gloomy and dark art thou—the crowded firs
Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,
Making thee doleful as a cavern-well :

Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest
On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!

LA Rivière de Cassis roule ignorée

En des vaux étranges:

La voix de cent corbeaux l'accompagne, vraie
Et bonne voix d'anges:

Avec les grands mouvements des sapinaies
Quand plusieurs vents plongent.

Tout roule avec des mystères révoltants
De campagnes d'anciens temps:
De donjons visités, de parcs importants :
C'est en ces bords qu'on entend

Les passions mortes des chevaliers errants :
Mais que salubre est le vent !

Dryads

Que le piéton regarde à ces clairevoies :
Il ira plus courageux.

Soldats des forêts que le Seigneur envoie,
Chers corbeaux délicieux !
Faites fuir d'ici le paysan matois

Qui trinque d'un moignon vieux.

116

.. And so this man returned with axe and saw
At evening close from killing the tall treen,
The soul of whom by nature's gentle law

Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green
The pavement and the roof of the wild copse,
Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene

With jagged leaves, and from the forest tops
Singing the winds to sleep-or weeping oft
Fast showers of aëreal water drops

Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft,
Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness;
Around the cradles of the birds aloft

They spread themselves into the loveliness
Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers

Hang like moist clouds :-or, where high branches kiss,
Make a green space among the silent bowers,

Like a vast fane in a metropolis,

Surrounded by the columns and the towers

All overwrought with branch-like traceries
In which there is religion-and the mute
Persuasion of unkindled melodies,

Odours and gleams and murmurs . .

The world is full of Woodmen who expel
Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life,
And vex the nightingales in every dell.

117

Fantastic Forms

O Lily-lady,

Dreaming serenely alone in cloud-garden shady,
No longer may'st thou muse, no more repose,
O lily-lady

In thy garden shady.

The great rose

Now waking, his crimson splendour doth loftily dispose;
Now is thy calm day done, now the star-daisies close,
O lily-lady

In thy garden shady.

I 18

...

Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or if the like of you exist, why exist they no more for me ?... In those days I saw gods, as 'old men covered with a mantle', walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry perish,-extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of legendary fabling,--in the heart of childhood there will for ever spring up a well of innocent or wholesome superstition-the seeds of exaggeration will be busy there, and vital-from everyday forms educing the unknown and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be light, when the grown world flounders about in the darkness of sense and materiality. While childhood, and while dreams reducing childhood, shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly the earth.

119

The Woodland Spirit

I am the powr

I 20

Of this fair Wood, and live in Oak'n bowr,
To nurse the Saplings tall, and curl the grove
With Ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove.
And all my
Plants I save from nightly ill,
Of noisom winds, and blasting vapours chill;
And from the Boughs brush off the evil dew,
And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blew,
Or what the cross dire-looking Planet smites,
Or hurtfull Worm with canker'd venom bites.
When Eev'ning gray doth rise, I fetch my round
Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground,
And early ere the odorous breath of morn
Awakes the slumbring leaves, or tasseld horn
Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about,
Number my ranks, and visit every sprout
With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless,
But els in deep of night when drowsines
Hath lockt up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial Sirens harmony,

That sit upon the nine enfolded Sphears,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the Adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.