O glorious tide, O hospitable tide
On whose mysterious breast my head hath lain,
Lest I, all eased of wounds and washed of stain
Through holy hours, be yet unsatisfied,
Loose me betimes: for in my soul abide
Urgings of memory, and exile's pain
Weighs on me, as the spirit of one slain
May throb for the old strife wherein he died.
Often and evermore, across the sea
Of dark and dreams, to fatherlands of Day,
Oh, speed me: as that outworn King erewhile
By kind Phæacians borne ashore, so me,
Thy loving healèd ward, fail not to lay
Beneath the olive boughs of mine own isle.
[Writ in my Lord Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion]
How life hath cheapen'd, and how blank
The Worlde is! like a fen
Where long ago unstainèd sank
The starrie gentlemen:
Since Marston Moor and Newbury drank
King Charles his gentlemen.
If Fate in any air accords
What Fate deny'd, Oh, then
I ask to be among your Swordes,
My joyous gentlemen;
Towards Honour's heaven to goe, and towards
King Charles his gentlemen!
[In a February Garden]
One rose till after snowtime
O'erlooked the sodden grass;
Now crocuses are twenty
With spear and torch a plenty,
To keep our Candlemas.
So thin that winter greyness,
So light that sleep forlorn,
No seventh week uncloses
Between the martyr roses
And crocus newly born.
All doubt is hushed for ever,
Confuted without sound,
All ruin featly ended,
When bulbs begin their splendid
Gay muster overground;
And mid the golden heralds
That ride the icy breeze,
Man, too, divinely vernal,
Storms into life eternal
Victoriously with these.
O Beauty, O Persistence
Ineffable and strong!
Would we had borne with Sorrow
In her unlasting morrow:
And Death was not for long.