Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.
Whanné that April with his shourés sote
The droughte of March hath percéd to the rote,
And bathed every veine in swiche licour
Of which virtue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eké with his soté brethe
Enspiréd hath in every holt and hethe
The tender croppés, and the yongé sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfé cours yronne,
And smalé foulés maken melodie,
That slepen allé night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in his corages;
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken strangé strondes
To servé halwes couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shirés ende
Of Englelond, to Canterbury they wende
The holy blisful martyr for to seke,
That hem hath holpén, when that they were seke.
Befelle, that, in that seson on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devoute corage,
At night was come into that hostelrie
Wel nine and twenty in a compagnie
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felowship, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Canterbury wolden ride;
The chambres and the stables weren wide,
And wel we weren eséd até beste.
SEVEN TIMES TWO, ROMANCE.
You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be,
And let the brown meadow lark's note as he ranges Come over, come over to me.
Yet birds, clearest carol by fall or by swelling
No magical sense conveys,
And bells have forgotten their old art of telling
The fortune of future days.
"Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheerily While a boy listened alone;
Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily
All by himself on a stone.
Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over, And mine, they are yet to be;
No listening, no longing shall aught, aught discover: You leave the story to me.
The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather,
And hangeth her hoods of snow;
She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather;
O children take long to grow!
I wish, and I wish that the spring would go faster,
Nor long summer bide so late;
And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster,
For some things are ill to wait.
I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover,
While dear hands are laid on my head;
"The child is a woman, the book may close over,
For all the lessons are said."
I wait for my story-the birds cannot sing it,
Not one, as he sits on the tree;
The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O, bring it!
Such as I wish it to be!
Thrise happie she that is so well assured
Unto herselfe, and settled so in hart,
That neither will for better be allured,
Ne feard with worse to any chaunce to start;
But, like a steddy ship, doth strongly part
The raging waves, and keepes her course aright;
Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart,
Ne aught for fayrer weather's false delight.
Such selfe assurance need not feare the spight
Of grudging foes, ne favor seek of friends;
But, in the stay of her owne stedfast might,
Neither to one her selfe nor other bends.
Most happy she, that most assured doth rest;
But he most happy, who such one loves best!
Edmund Spenser.
Lackyng my Love, I go from place to place,
Lyke a young fawne that late hath lost the hynd;
And seeke each where, where last I sawe her face,
Whose ymage yet I carry fresh in mynd.
I seeke the fields with her late footing synd;
I seeke her bower with her late presence deckt;
Yet nor in field nor bower I can her fynd,
Yet field and bower are full of her aspect:
But when myne eyes I therunto direct,
They ydly back returne to me agayne;
And when I hope to see theyr trew object,
I fynd myself but fed with fancies vayne.
Ceasse then, myne eyes, to seeke her selfe to see;
And let my thoughts behold her selfe in me.
Edmund Spenser
Fayre is my Love, when her fayre golden heares
With the loose wynd, ye waving chance to marke;
Fayre, when the rose in her red cheekes appeares,
Or in her eyes the fyre of love does sparke.
Fayre, when her breast, lyke a rich laden barke
With pretious merchandize, she forth doth lay;
Fayre, when that cloud of pryde, which oft doth dark
Her goodly light, with smiles she drives away;
But fayrest she, when so she doth display
The gate with pearls and rubyes richly dight;
Through which her words so wise do make their way
To beare the message of her gentle spright.
The rest be works of natures wonderment;
But this the worke of harts astonishment.
Into the Silent Land!
Ah! who shall lead us thither?
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.
Who leads us with a gentle hand
Thither, O thither,
Into the Silent Land?
Into the Silent Land!
To you, ye boundless regions
Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions
Of beauteous souls! The Future's pledge and band! Who in life's battle firm doth stand,
Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms
Into the Silent Land!
For all the broken-hearted
The mildest herald by our fate allotted,
Beckons and with inverted torch doth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand
To the land of the great Departed,
Into the Silent Land!
Uhland (Longfellow's Trans.).
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