VII. Let's take this world as some wide scene, Through which, in frail, but buoyant boat, With skies now dark and now serene, Together thou and I must float, Beholding oft on either shore, Bright spots where we should love to stay; But Time plies swift his flying oar, And away we speed, away, away. Should chilling winds and rains come on, And smiling wait a sunnier hour. And if that sunnier hour should shine, So shall we reach at last that Fall Down which life's currents all must go,The dark, the brilliant, destined all To sink into the void below. Nor ev'n that hour shall want its charms, T. Moore. VIII. THE BOATMAN. Half sleeping still, I stand among And thou must row me towards the sea The Boatman rose and stretched his hand 'Come in-thou hast far to go;' And through the drowsy reeds from land The boat went soft and slow; Stealing and stilly and soft and slow. And the Boatman looked in my face and smiled: 'Thy lids are yet heavy; sleep on, poor child! Lulled by the drip of the oars I dip, Measured aud musical, sure and steady Sleep by my side while from home we glide.' And I dreamily murmur, 'From home already!' 'See from the buds of the almond bough A beautiful fairy rise; Now it skims o'er the glass of the wave, and now It soars to its kindred skies: Follow its flight, or lost to sight, It will vanish amid the skies!" 'My boat cannot flee as thy fairy flees; Ten thousand things with brighter wings Are scattered before the breeze. But only the earliest seen, as now, And never again from the almond bough Already the insect is drowned in the wave Though I measure my movements by no man's taste, Yet I time my way to the best of my power, Softer and softer, though never less steady. Both the rose and the beam, Lo, the arms of the bay close round thee already!' Rising out of the stream, As from slumber a dream Is it Eden that closes around me already? 'Oh, land and leave me! take my gold; 'Thou bad'st me follow a fairy, when I may not halt for thy angel now. Till the voyage be over I land or leave. But I'm not such a churl as I seem to be, And the angel may sit in my boat with thee.' 'See her stand on the margin by which we shall glide— Open thine arms and she springs to thy side.' 'Close, close to my side, O angel! O bride! A fresh sun on the universe dawns from thine eyes, To shine evermore, through each change on the shore, And undimmed by each cloud that flits over the skies.' Side by side thus we whisper-Who loves, loves for ever.' As wave upon wave to the sea runs the river, And the oar on the smoothness drops noiseless and steady, Till we start with a sigh, was it she-was it I Who first turned to look back on the way we had made? Who first saw the soft tints of the rose garden fade? Who first sighed-See the rose-hue is fading already?" 'Boatman, look at the blackening cloud; For the lightning is bursting its ghastly shroud, 'No storm on this river outlasts its hour; As I stayed not for sun, so I stay not for shower. And as on one bosom descends the storm. 'Look up' said the Boatman; 'the storm is spent: In the cloud that gave birth to the thunder shower. There's a change in myself and the change is chill; Is it the shade from the snow-capt hill, Muttered the Boatman-'So like them all; They mark the change in the earth and sky, Flit shadow and light as a dream flits on dream; Plish plash, drop upon drop, My oars, through all changes, move constant and steady. Down the stream still we glide, Still we sit side by side Side by side, feeling lonely, and sighing' already!' Then seems there to float down the length of the way, From the sedges remote, from the rose-garden bay, From the town and the mart, From the river's deep heart, From the heart of the land, from the lips of the bride, One glimmer of light From the beacon's lone height, One look at the shore and one stroke of the oar, And the river is lost in the ocean already! B Sir E Bulwer Lytton. |