From “Festus”
FOR to die young is youth’s divinest gift;
To pass from one world fresh into another,
Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret,
And feel the immortal impulse from within
Which makes the coming life cry always, On!
And follow it while strong, is heaven’s last mercy.
There is a fire-fly in the south, but shines
...
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“she is dead!” they said to him; “come away;
Kiss her and leave her,—thy love is clay!”They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair;
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair;Over her eyes that gazed too much
They drew the lids with a gentle touch;With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to... -
Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold
From “Pearls of the Faith”
He made life—and He takes it—but instead
Gives more: praise the Restorer, Al-Mu’hid!HE who dies at Azan 1 sends
This to comfort faithful friends:—Faithful friends! it lies, I know,
Pale and white and cold as snow;
And ye says, “Abdullah ’s dead!”
Weeping at... -
It is not death to die,
To leave this weary road,
And, midst the brotherhood on high,
To be at home with God.It is not death to close
The eye long dimmed by tears,
And wake in glorious repose,
To spend eternal years.It is not death to bear
The wrench that sets us free
From dungeon-chain, to breathe... -
There is no death! the stars go down
To rise upon some other shore,
And bright in heaven’s jewelled crown
They shine forever more.There is no death! the forest leaves
Convert to life the viewless air;
The rocks disorganize to feed
The hungry moss they bear.There is no death! the dust we tread
Shall change,... -
Sonnet Cxlvi.
poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge?... -
The Melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all... -
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.He lieth still: he...
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From “Verses upon His Divine Poesy”
THE SEAS are quiet when the winds give o’er;
So calm are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed...
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From “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Canto V.
CALL it not vain:—they do not err,
Who say, that when the poet dies,
Mute nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies;
Who say tall cliff, and cavern lone,
For the departed bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm...