But yet their souls are bright above,
Yes, brighter than this evening hour;
And beauteous in those realms of love,
As air-gold on thy shining tower.
The latest beam is lingering still
Upon thy topmost crumbling stone;
It fades beyond the western hill,
And leaves thee to the night alone.
The light, too, passes from my mind,
But leaves, ere yet its beams depart,
Another joy in memory shrined,
Another lesson on the heart.
HIS battle fares like to the morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light;
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day, nor night.
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea,
Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways
it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind;
Sometime, the flood prevails; and then, the wind;
Now, one the better; then, another best;
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered:
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here, on this molehill, will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory!
For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
Have chid me from the battle, swearing both,
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many make the hour full complete,
How many hours bring about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?
O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, -
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couched in a curious bed,
When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.
WATCH ye, and ward ye! a ship in sight,
And bearing down for Trebarra Height,
She folds her wings by that rocky strand:
Watch ye, and ward ye, a boat on land!
Hush! for they glide from yonder cave
To greet these strangers of the wave;
Wait! since they pace the seaward glen
With the measured tread of mourning men.
"Hold! masters, hold! ye tarry here,
What corse is laid on your solemn bier?
Yon minster-ground were a calmer grave
Than the roving bark or the weedy wave!"
Strong vows we made to our sister dead
To hew in fair France her narrow bed;
And her angry ghost will win no rest
If your Cornish earth lie on her breast."
They rend that pall in the glaring light:
By St. Michael of Carne! 't was an awful sight!
For those folded hands were meekly laid
On the silent breast of a shrouded maid.
"God speed, my masters, your mournful way!
Go, bury your dead where best ye may:
But the Norroway barks are over the deep,
So we watch and ward from our guarded steep."
Who comes with weapon? who comes with steed?
Ye may hear far off their clanking speed;
What knight in steel is thundering on?
Ye may know the voice of the grim Sir John.
"Saw ye my daughter, my Gwennah bright,
Borne out for dead at the deep of night?"
"Too late! too late!" cried the warder pale,
"Lo! the full deck, and the rushing sail!"
They have roused that maid from her trance of sleep, They have spread their sails to the roaring deep;
Watch ye, and ward ye! with wind and tide,
Fitz-Walter hath won his Cornish bride.
HEN now the neighboring floods willed Wrekin to suppress
His style, or they were like to surfeit with excess, And time had brought about that now they all began To listen to a long-told prophecy, which ran
Of Moreland, that she might live prosperously to see A river born of her, who well might reckoned be The third of this large isle: which saw did first arise From Arden, in those days delivering prophecies.
Why shouldst thou all this while the prophecy defer,
Who bearing many springs, which pretty rivers grew,
She could not be content until she fully knew
Which child it was of hers (born under such a fate)
As should in time be raised unto that high estate?
(I fain would have you think that this was long ago,
When many a river now that furiously doth flow
Had scarcely learned to creep), and therefore she doth will
Wise Arden, from the depth of her abundant skill,
To tell her which of these her rills it was she meant.
To satisfy her will, the wizard answers, Trent.
For, as a skilful seer, the aged forest wist,
A more than usual power did in that name consist,
Which thirty doth import: by which she thus divined,
There should be found in her of fishes thirty kind;
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