From “In Memoriam,” LIII.
O YET we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That...
From “In Memoriam,” CV.
RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night—
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new—
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
...
From “Idyls of the King: Guinevere”
THE QUEEN looked up, and said,
“O maiden, if indeed you list to sing,
Sing, and unbind my heart, that I may weep.”
Whereat full willingly sang the little maid:
“Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now...
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!...
Deep on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon:
My breath to heaven like vapor goes:
May my soul follow soon!
The shadows of the convent-towers
Slant down the snowy sward,
Still creeping with the creeping hours
That lead me to my Lord:
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
As are the frosty skies,...
From “In Memoriam”
LXXXII.
DIP down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new-year, delaying long:
Thou dost expectant Nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.
What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?
Bring...
From “The Brook: an Idyl”
I COME from haunts of coot and hern:
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip’s farm I flow
To join...
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;...
From “The Princess”
THE SPLENDOR falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,
And...
O Blackbird! sing me something well:
While all the neighbors shoot thee round,
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,
Where thou may’st warble, eat, and dwell.
The espaliers and the standards all
Are thine; the range of lawn and park:
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark;
All thine, against the garden wall.
Yet, tho’...
