Will not your airy glee relent
At all? The aimless frolic cease?
Know ye no touch of quelling pain,
Nor joy’s more strict admonishment,
No tender awe at day-light’s wane,
Ye slaves of delicate caprice?
Hush, once again that cry intense!
High-venturing spirits have your will!
Urge the last freak, prolong your glee,
Keen voyagers, while still the immense
Sea-spaces haunt your memory,
With zests and pangs ineffable.
Not in the sunshine of old woods
Ye won your warrant to be gay
By duteous, sweet observances,
Who dared through darkening solitudes,
And ’mid the hiss of alien seas,
The larger ordinance obey.
MEMORIALS OF TRAVEL
I. COACHING
(In Scotland)
Where have I been this perfect summer day,
—Or fortnight is it, since I rose from bed,
Devour’d that kippered fish, the oatmeal bread,
And mounted to this box? O bowl away
Swift stagers through the dusk, I will not say
“Enough,” nor care where I have been or be,
Nor know one name of hill, or lake, or lea,
Or moor, or glen! Were not the clouds at play
Nameless among the hills, and fair as dreams?
On such a day we must love things not words,
And memory take or leave them as they are.
On such a day! What unimagined streams
Are in the world, how many haunts of birds,
What fields and flowers,—and what an evening Star!
II. IN A MOUNTAIN PASS
(In Scotland)