Lorn autumns and triumphant springs;
And life, and others' joy and pain,
And love, if love, of happier men.

Of happier men-for they, at least,
Have dreamed two human hearts might blend
In one, and were through faith released
From isolation without end

Prolonged; nor knew, although not less
Alone than thou, their loneliness.

II

ES! in the sea of life enisled,

Ywith echoing straits between us thrown,

Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.

The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing;

And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour-

Oh! then a longing like despair

Is to their farthest caverns sent;

For surely once, they feel, we were

Parts of a single continent!

Now round us spreads the watery plain-
Oh, might our marges meet again!

145

Who ordered, that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled?
Who renders vain their deep desire?-
A God, a God their severance ruled!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.

Matthew Arnold

T

divine despair

EARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

Alfred Tennyson

146

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 their haven under the hill;

But O 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.

147

Alfred Tennyson

YOUTH AND AGE

́ERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,

a

Both were mine! Life went a-maying

With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!

When I was young?-Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,

This body that does me grievous wrong, O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands

How lightly then it flashed along: Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;

O! the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,

Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet
'Tis known that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-

It cannot be that thou art gone!
Thy vesper bell hath not yet tolled:-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,

And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!

Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.

Dewdrops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!

Where no hope is, life's a warning.
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old:

-That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismist,
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

148

CRABBED Age and Youth

Cannot live together:

Youth is full of pleasance,

Age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn,

Age like winter weather,

Youth like summer brave,

Age like winter bare:

Youth is full of sport,

Age's breath is short,

Youth is nimble, Age is lame:

Youth is hot and bold,

Age is weak and cold,

Youth is wild, and Age is tame:

Age, I do abhor thee,

Youth, I do adore thee;