TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY
On the wide level of a mountain's head
(I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place),
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,
Two lovely children run an endless race,
A sister and a brother!
This far outstript the other;
Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
And looks and listens for the boy behind:
For he, alas! is blind!
O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed,
And knows not whether he be first or last.
DEJECTION: AN ODE
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms;
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.
Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.
Well! if the bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds that ply a busier trade
Than those which mold yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo! the New Moon, winter-bright
And overspread with phantom light,
With swimming phantom light o'erspread,
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread;
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming on of rain and squally blast.
And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving hard and fast!
Those sounds, which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,
And sent my soul abroad,
Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give—
Might startle this dull pain and make it move and live.
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear—
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear—
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow-green;
And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars,—
Those stars that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen;
Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue:
I see them all so excellently fair—
I see, nor feel, how beautiful they are!