SIXTEEN.

Each gloried in their wanton part:
To make a lover, he

Employed the utmost of his art;
To make a beauty, she.

Though now I slowly bend to love,
Uncertain of my fate,

If your fair self my chains approve
I shall my freedom hate.

Since none alive can truly tell

What fortune they must see.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY.

SIXTEEN.

IN Clementina's artless mien

Lucilla asks me what I see

And are the roses of sixteen

Enough for me?

Lucilla asks, if that be all

Have I not culled as sweet before?

Ah yes, Lucilla! and their fall

I still deplore.

I now behold another scene,

Where pleasure beams with heaven's own light

IN VAIN YOU TELL.

More pure, more constant, more serene,
And not less bright:

Faith, on whose breast the loves repose,

Whose chain of flowers no force can sever,

And Modesty, who, when she goes,

Is gone forever.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

IN VAIN YOU TELL.

In vain you tell your parting lover
You wish fair winds may waft him over:
Alas! what winds can happy prove

That bear me far from what I love?

Can equal those that I sustain
From slighted vows and cold disdain?

Be gentle, and in pity choose
To wish the wildest tempests loose,
That, thrown again upon the coast
Where first my shipwrecked heart was lost,
I may once more repeat my pain –
Once more in dying notes complain
Of slighted vows and cold disdain.

MATTHEW PRIOR

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play

O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay

And the stately ships go on

To the haven under the hill;

But for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

ALFRED TENNYSON

THE PASSAGE.

MANY a year is in its grave
Since I crossed this restless wave,
And the evening, fair as ever,
Shines on ruin, rock, and river.

THE PASSAGE.

Then, in this same boat beside,
Sat two comrades old and tried:
One with all a father's truth,
One with all the fire of youth.

One on earth in silence wrought,
And his grave in silence sought;
But the younger, brighter form
Passed in battle and in storm.

So, whene'er I turn my eye
Back upon the days gone by,

Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me,
Friends that closed their course before me.

But what binds us, friend to friend,
But that soul with soul can blend?
Soul-like were those hours of yore;
Let us walk in soul once more.

Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee:
Take-I give it willingly;

For, invisible to thee,

Spirits twain have crossed with me.

Anonymous Translation.

JOHANN LUDWIG UHLAND. (German.)