How can we sit here and not thrill
With but the pleasure of past time?
This footpath winding round the hill
Should stir us like remember’d rhyme
Nay! for the dull and sluggish brain
Is spurred to action all in vain,
And when the spirit cannot rise
Through natural feeling into light,
No perfumed air, no splendid skies,
Can lend it wings for flight.
XII.
Come, then, and leave the sovereign sea
To sparkle in the laughing air;
Another day its face will be
No less refulgent, no less fair,
And we by custom be made strong
To bear what we desired so long;
To-day the slackening nerves demand
A milder light, a sadder air,
Some corner of forgotten land,
Still winter-like and bare.
XIII.
Come! leave our pathway for to-day,
And turning inland, seek the woods,
Where last year’s sombre leaves decay
In brown sonorous solitudes;
The murmurous voice of those dark trees
Will teach us more than sun or seas,
And in that twilight we may find
Some golden flower of strange perfume,
A blossom hidden from the wind,
A flame within the tomb.
THE FOOTPATH.
You gave your hand to me, as through
The low scrub-growth that spanned
The Danes’ old tower, we caught anew
The sharp salt-burdened breeze that blew
Across the reach of sand.
Too proud! the grace you scorned to do,
Where scarce your foot could stand;—
’Twas but from sheer fatigue, I knew,
You gave your hand!
How well that scene comes back to view!
Your cheeks’ faint roses fanned,—
The gorge,—the twinkling seaward blue,
The black boats on the strand;
I gave you all my heart, and you—
You gave your hand.