PHAEDRA'S NURSE
A plague on the whimsies of sickly folk!
What am I to do? What not?
Why, here's the fair sky, and here you lie
With your couch in a sunny spot.
For this you were puling whenever you spoke,
Craving to lie outside,
And now you'll be sure not to bide.
You won't lie still for an hour;
You'll want to be back to your bower—
Longing, and never enjoying,
Shifting from yea to nay.
For all that you taste is cloying,
And sweet is the far away.
'Tis hard to be sick, but worse
To have to sit by and nurse,
For that is single, but this is double,
The mind in pain, and the hands in trouble.
The life men live is a weary coil,
There is no rest from woe and toil;
And if there's aught elsewhere more dear
Than drawing breath as we do here,
That darkness holds
In black inextricable folds.
Lovesick it seems are we
Of this, whate'er it be,
That gleams upon the earth;
Because that second birth,
That other life no man hath tried.
What lies below
No god will show,
And we to whom the truth's denied
Drift upon idle fables to and fro.
BELOW BOULTER'S LOCK
The aspen grows on the maiden's bank,
Down swoops the breeze on the bough,
Quick rose the gust, and suddenly sank,
Like wrath on my sweetheart's brow.
The tree is caught, the boat dreads nought,
Sheltered and safe below;
The bank is high, and the wind runs by,
Giving us leave to row.
The bank was dipping low and lower,
Showing the glowing west,
The oar went slower, for either rower
The river was heaving her breast.
That sunset seemed to my dauntless steerer
The lifting and breaking of day,
That flush on the wave to me was dearer
Than shade on a windless way.
June 2nd, 1868.
FROM HALS DON TO CHELTENHAM TO TWO LITTLE LADIES.
Across three shires I stretch and lean,
To gaze beyond the hills that screen
The trustful eyes and gracious mien
Of unforgotten Geraldine.
Up Severn sea my fancy leadeth,
And past the springs of Thames it speedeth,
On to the brilliant town, which needeth,
Far less than I, the laugh of Edith.
Sad gales have changed my woodland scene
To russet-brown from gold and green;
Cold and forlorn like me hath been
The boat that carried Geraldine.
On silent paths the whistler weedeth,
And what his tune is no one heedeth;
On hay beneath the linhay feedeth
The ass that felt the hand of Edith.
Oh cherished thought of Geraldine,
I'd rhyme till summer, if the Queen
Would blow her trumpets and proclaim
Fresh rhymes for that heroic name.
Oh babbler gay as river stickle,
Next year you'll be too old to tickle;
But while my Torridge flows I'll say
"Blithe Edith liked me half day."