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All are at one now, roses and lovers,

Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea. Not a breath of the time that has been hovers

In the air now soft with a summer to be.

Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter
Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,
When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter
We shall sleep.

Here death may deal not again for ever;

Here change may come not till all change end. From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, Who have left nought living to ravage and rend. Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, While the sun and the rain live, these shall be; Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing Roll the sea.

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink;
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,

Death lies dead.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

219

TO AUTUMN

EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

SEASON

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

220

HARVEST-HOME 1

NCE on a time did Eucritus and I

ONG

(With us Amyntas) to the riverside
Steal from the city. For Lycopeus' sons
Were that day busy with the harvest-home,
Antigenes and Phrasidemus, sprung

(If aught thou holdest by the good old names)
By Clytia from great Chalcon-him who erst
Planted one stalwart knee against the rock,
And lo, beneath his foot Burinè's rill

Brake forth, and at its side poplar and elm
Showed aisles of pleasant shadow, greenly roofed
By tufted leaves. Scarce midway were we now,
Nor yet descried the tomb of Brasilas:

When, thanks be to the Muses, there drew near
A wayfarer from Crete, young Lycidas.

The horned herd was his care: a glance might tell
So much: for every inch a herdsman he.
Slung o'er his shoulder was a ruddy hide
Torn from a he-goat, shaggy, tangle-haired,
That reeked of rennet yet: a broad belt clasped
A patched cloak round his breast, and for a staff
A gnarled wild-olive bough his right hand bore.
Soon with a quiet smile he spoke his eye

1 The translation is by Charles Stuart Calverley, and is reprinted with the permission of Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.-Leigh Hunt thus states the argument of the poem: "The chief part of it relates what befell him [the poet] on his way to a friend's house out of town, to join a party at harvest-home. He overtakes a brother poet, who, in respect to his condition in life, might have been to Theocritus what a Burns from the plow might have been to a 'gentleman,' had any such rival poet existed in Burns' time. This inspired rustic, who . . . speaks as well as the gentleman himself, is represented as reciting a poem of his composition, to beguile the way. Theocritus, in return, recites a composition of his own; and the whole piece concludes with a description of the luxurious orchard nest which awaited our author on his arrival at the house he was going to."

Twinkled, and laughter sat upon his lip:
"And whither ploddest thou thy weary way
Beneath the noontide sun, Simichidas?

For now the lizard sleeps upon the wall,
The crested lark folds now his wandering wing.
Dost speed, a bidden guest, to some reveler's board?
Or townward to the treading of the grape?

For lo! recoiling from thy hurrying feet
The pavement-stones ring out right merrily."
Then I: "Friend Lycid, all men say
that none
Of haymakers or herdsmen is thy match
At piping: and my soul is glad thereat.
Yet, to speak sooth, I think to rival thee.
Now look, this road holds holiday to-day:
For banded brethren solemnize a feast
To richly-dight Demeter, thanking her
For her good gifts: since with no grudging hand
Hath the boon goddess filled the wheaten floors.
So come: the way, the day, is thine as mine:
Try we our woodcraft-each may learn from each.
I am, as thou, a clarion-voice of song;

All hail me chief of minstrels. But I am not,
Heaven knows, o'ercredulous: no, I scarce can yet
(I think) outvie Philetas, nor the bard
Of Samos, champion of Sicilian song.
They are as cicadas challenged by a frog."

I spake to gain mine ends; and laughing light
He said: "Accept this club, as thou'rt indeed.
A born truth-teller, shaped by heaven's own hand!
I hate your builders who would rear a house
High as Oromedon's mountain-pinnacle:
I hate your song-birds too, whose cuckoo-cry
Struggles (in vain) to match the Chian bard.

But come, we'll sing forthwith, Simichidas,
Our woodland music: and for my part

List, comrade, if you like the simple air

I forged among the uplands yesterday.

[Sings] Safe be my true-love convoyed o'er the main To Mitylene--though the southern blast

Chase the lithe waves, while westward slant the Kids,

Or low above the verge Orion stand

If from Love's furnace she will rescue me,

For Lycidas is parched with hot desire.

Let halcyons lay the sea-waves and the winds,
North wind and west wind, that in shores far off
Flutter the seaweed-halcyons, of all birds

Whose

prey is on the waters, held most dear By the green Nereids: yea let all things smile. On her to Mitylenè voyaging,

And in fair harbor may she ride at last.

I on that day, a chaplet woven of dill

Or rose or simple violet on my brow,

Will draw the wine of Pteleas from the cask,
Stretched by the ingle. They shall roast me beans,
And elbow-deep in thyme and asphodel
And quaintly-curling parsley shall be piled
My bed of rushes, where in royal ease
I sit and, thinking of my darling, drain
With stedfast lip the liquor to the dregs.
I'll have a pair of pipers, shepherds both,
This from Acharnæ, from Lycopè that;
And Tityrus shall be near me and shall sing
How the swain Daphnis loved the stranger-maid;
And how he ranged the fells, and how the oaks
(Such oaks as Himera's banks are green withal)
Sang dirges o'er him waning fast away

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