SONG

RARELY, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night?

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;

Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee, that thou art not near,

And reproach thou wilt not hear.

Let me set my mournful ditty

To a merry measure,

Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure,

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Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves drest,

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,

Every thing almost

Which is Nature's, and may be

Untainted by man's misery.

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30

36

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.

42

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.

1821. 1824.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

48

DREAM-PEDLARY

If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,

That shakes from Life's fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.

If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,

And the crier rang the bell,

What would you buy?

A cottage lone and still,

With bowers nigh,

Shadowy, my woes to still,

Until I die.

Such pearl from Life's fresh crown

Fain would I shake me down.

Were dreams to have at will,
This would best heal my ill,

This would I buy.

But there were dreams to sell

Ill didst thou buy;

Life is a dream, they tell,

Waking, to die.

1851.

Dreaming a dream to prize,

Is wishing ghosts to rise;
And, if I had the spell
To call the buried well,

Which one would I?

If there are ghosts to raise,
What shall I call,

Out of hell's murky haze,
Heaven's blue pall?

Raise my loved long-lost boy
To lead me to his joy.-
There are no ghosts to raise;
Out of death lead no ways;

Vain is the call.

Know'st thou not ghosts to sue?

No love thou hast.

Else lie, as I will do,

And breathe thy last.

So out of Life's fresh crown

Fall like a rose-leaf down.
Thus are the ghosts to woo;
Thus are all dreams made true,

Ever to last!

Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

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37

46

GOOD-BY

GOOD-BY, proud world! I'm going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.

Good-By

Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,

Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world! I 'm going home.

Good-by to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-by, proud world! I'm going home.

I'm going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone,-
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,

And vulgar feet have never trod

A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

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22

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learnèd clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet? 30
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

1839.