Never, oh never more these feet shall feel
The firm elastic tissue of upland turf,10
Or the crisp edge of the high rocks; or cling
Where the embattled cliffs beneath them reel
Through cloud-wreaths eddying like the Atlantic surf,
Far, far above the wheeling eagle's wing.
J. A. Symonds.
HAPPY IS ENGLAND
Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment5
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,10
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.
J. Keats.
THE DAISY
WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH
O love, what hours were thine and mine,
In lands of palm and southern pine;
In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.
What Roman strength Turbia showed5
In ruin, by the mountain road;
How like a gem, beneath, the city
Of little Monaco, basking, glowed.
How richly down the rocky dell
The torrent vineyard streaming fell10
To meet the sun and sunny waters,
That only heaved with a summer swell.
What slender campanili grew
By bays, the peacock's neck in hue;
Where, here and there, on sandy beaches15
A milky-belled amaryllis blew.