“ay, not at home, then, didst thou say?
—And, prithee, hath he gone to court?”
“Nay; he hath sailed but yesterday,
With Edmund Spenser, from this port.
“This Spenser, folk do say, hath writ
Twelve cantos, called ‘The Faërie Queene.’
To seek for one to publish it,
They go—on a long voyage, I ween.”
Ah me! I came so far...
“but why do you go?” said the lady, while both sate under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.
“Because I fear you,” he answered;—“because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-colored hair.”
“Oh, that,” she said, “is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,
And too...
A Trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun’s pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o’er Eildon’s triple height:
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain
For kindred Power departing from their sight;
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.
Lift up your hearts, ye...
Back to the flower-town, side by side,
The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
Freedom and spring.
The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
Filled full of sun;
All things come back to her, being free;
All things but one.
In many a tender wheaten plot
Flowers that were dead...
