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Stanzas Written Near Naples 3167

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,

And the starry night,

Autumn evening, and the morn

When the golden mists are born.

I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;

I love waves, and winds, and storms-
Everything almost

Which is Nature's, and may be

Untainted by man's misery.

I love tranquil solitude,

And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good;

Between thee and me

What difference? But thou dost possess

The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love-though he has wings,
And like light can flee;

But above all other things,

Spirit, I love thee!

Thou art love and life! Oh, come,

Make once more my heart thy home!

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES

THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,

The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might:
The breath of the moist earth is light
Around its unexpanded buds;

Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean-floods,

The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple seaweed strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:

I sit upon the sands alone;

The lightning of the noontide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion,—

How sweet, did any heart now share in my emotion!

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that Content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned,-
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
Others I see whom these surround-

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;-
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild,

Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Some might lament that I were cold,
As I, when this sweet day is gone,

Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;

They might lament-for I am one

Whom men love not, and yet regret,

Unlike this day, which, when the sun

Shall on its stainless glory set,

Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]

Sunset Wings

3169

SUNSET WINGS

TO-NIGHT this sunset spreads two golden wings

Cleaving the western sky;

Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings
Of strenuous flight must die.

Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway
Above the dovecote-tops;

And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day,
Sink, clamorous like mill-waters, at wild play,
By turns in every copse:

Each tree heart-deep the wrangling rout receives,-
Save for the whirr within,

You could not tell the starlings from the leaves;

Then one great puff of wings, and the swarm heaves Away with all its din.

Even thus Hope's hours, in ever-eddying flight,
To many a refuge tend;

With the first light she laughed, and the last light
Glows round her still; who natheless in the night
At length must make an end.

And now the mustering rooks innumerable
Together sail and soar,

While for the day's death, like a tolling knell,
Unto the heart they seem to cry, Farewell,
No more, farewell, no more!

Is Hope not plumed, as 'twere a fiery dart?
And oh! thou dying day,

Even as thou goest must she too depart,

And Sorrow fold such pinions on the heart
As will not fly away?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882]

MORALITY

WE cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.

But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
Not till the hours of light return
All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she viewed thy self-control,
Thy struggling, tasked morality—

Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.

And she, whose answer thou dost dread
Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,

A strong emotion on her cheek!

"Ah, child," she cries, "that strife divine,

Whence was it, for it is not mine?

"There is no effort on my brow—
I do not strive, I do not weep;
I rush with the swift spheres and glow
In joy, and when I will, I sleep.
Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once-but where?

"I knew not yet the gauge of time,
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,
I saw it in some other place.

Mutability

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod,

And lay upon the breast of God.

3171

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

CUI BONO

WHAT is Hope? A smiling rainbow
Children follow through the wet;
'Tis not here, still yonder, yonder:
Never urchin found it yet.

What is Life? A thawing iceboard
On a sea with sunny shore;
Gay we sail; it melts beneath us;
We are sunk, and seen no more.

What is Man? A foolish baby,

Vainly strives, and fights, and frets; Demanding all, deserving nothing;

One small grave is what he gets.

Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881]

MUTABILITY

THE flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts, and then flies.
What is this world's delight?

Lightning that mocks the night,

Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship how rare!

Love, how it sells poor bliss

For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,

Survive their joy, and all

Which ours we call.

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