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Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!-
Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim,
These brambles pale with mist engarlanded,
That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him;
To a boon southern country he is fled,

And now in happier air,

Wandering with the great Mother's train divine
(And purer or more subtle soul than thee,
I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see)
Within a folding of the Apennine,

Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!-
Putting his sickle to the perilous grain

In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king,
For thee the Lityerses-song again

Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing;
Sings his Sicilian fold,

His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes—
And how a call celestial round him rang,

And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, And all the marvel of the golden skies.

There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here
Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair.
Despair I will not, while I yet descry
'Neath the mild canopy of English. air
That lonely tree against the western sky.
Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear,

Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee!

Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay, Woods with anemones in flower till May, Know him a wanderer still; then why not me?

A fugitive and gracious light he seeks,

Shy to illumine; and I seek it too.

This does not come with houses or with gold, With place, with honour, and a flattering crew; 'Tis not in the world's market bought and soldBut the smooth-slipping weeks

Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired;
Out of the heed of mortals he is gone,

He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone;
Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired.

Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound;
Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour!

Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest,
If men esteemed thee feeble, gave thee power,
If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest.
And this rude Cumner ground,

Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,
Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time,
Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime!
And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.

What though the music of thy rustic flute
Kept not for long its happy, country tone;
Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note
Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,

Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat

It fail'd, and thou wast mute!

Yet hadst thou always visions of our light,

And long with men of care thou couldst not stay.
And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way,

Left human haunt, and on alone till night.

Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here!

'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home.

-Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, Let in thy voice a whisper often come,

To chase fatigue and fear:

Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died.

Roam on! The light we sought is shining still.

Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill,

Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.

WORLDLY PLACE

EVEN in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
Our freedom for a little bread we sell,

And drudge under some foolish master's ken
Who rates us if we peer outside our pen-
Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?
Even in a palace! On his truth sincere,
Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came;
And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame
Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,

I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here!
The aids to noble life are all within."

SIDNEY DOBELL [1824-1874]

ENGLAND TO AMERICA

NOR force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye
Who north or south, on east or western land,
Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
For God; O ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand

Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand,
Heroic utterance-parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered, children brave and free
Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an Empire wide as Shakspere's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI [1828-1882]

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL

THE blessed damozel leaned out
From the golden bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,
For service meetly worn;

Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Her seemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years.
Yet now, and in this place,

Surely she leaned o'er me-her hair
Fell all about my face. . . .
Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)

It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;

So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

Around her, lovers, newly met

'Mid deathless love's acclaims, Spoke evermore among themselves Their heart-remembered names; And the souls mounting up to God Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself and stooped
Out of the circling charm;

Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,

And the lilies lay as if asleep

Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of Heaven she saw

Time like a pulse shake fierce

Through all the world. Her gaze still strove Within the gulf to pierce

Its path; and now she spoke as when

The stars sang in their spheres.

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The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather

Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, Strove not her accents there,

Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the mid-day air,

Strove not her steps to reach my side

Down all the echoing stair?)

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