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 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, 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, To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 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? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 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? Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; John Keats 220 HARVEST-HOME 1 NCE on a time did Eucritus and I ONG (With us Amyntas) to the riverside (If aught thou holdest by the good old names) Brake forth, and at its side poplar and elm When, thanks be to the Muses, there drew near The horned herd was his care: a glance might tell 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: For now the lizard sleeps upon the wall, For lo! recoiling from thy hurrying feet All hail me chief of minstrels. But I am not, I spake to gain mine ends; and laughing light But come, we'll sing forthwith, Simichidas, 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, 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, |