Consider the sea’s listless chime:
Time’s self it is, made audible—
The murmur of the earth’s own shell.
Secret continuance sublime
Is the sea’s end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.
No quiet, which is death’s—it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,...
Oh! where do fairies hide their heads,
When snow lies on the hills,
When frost has spoiled their mossy beds,
And crystallized their rills?
Beneath the moon they cannot trip
In circles o’er the plain;
And draughts of dew they cannot sip,
Till green leaves come again.
Perhaps, in small, blue diving-bells
They...
Anonymous translation from the French
TOWN, tower,
Shore, deep,
Where lower
Cliffs steep;
Waves gray,
Where play
Winds gay,—
All sleep.
Hark! a sound,
Far and slight,...
Anonymous translation from the German
I KNOW not whence it rises,
This thought so full of woe;—
But a tale of times departed
Haunts me—and will not go.
The air is cool, and it darkens,
And calmly flows the Rhine;
The mountain peaks are sparkling
In the sunny evening-shine.
And yonder sits a maiden,
...
Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below.
Now my brothers call from the bay;
Now the great winds shorewards blow;
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away.
This way, this way.
Call her once before you go....
From “The End of Elfintown”
* * * * *FOR this holds true—too true, alas!
The sky that eve was clear as glass,
Yet no man saw the Faeries pass
Where azure pathways glisten;
And true it is—too true, ay me—
That nevermore on lawn or lea
Shall mortal man a Faery see,
Though long he look and listen....
What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river?
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep, cool bed of the river,
The limpid water turbidly...
October, 1858
ERRATIC Soul of some great Purpose, doomed
To track the wild illimitable space,
Till sure propitiation has been made
For the divine commission unperformed!
What was thy crime? Ahasuerus’ curse
Were not more stern on earth than thine in heaven!
Art thou the Spirit of some Angel World,
For grave rebellion banished...
The BlessÈd damozel 1 leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even,
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
For service...
October 6, 1892 1
I ’LL wake and watch this autumn night,
Till the slow dawn is gray;
Lest I should miss a noble sight
Upon the King’s highway.
For now the far-enthronèd King
To whom all flesh shall come,
A glorious message sends, to bring
His exiled minstrel home;
And I may see the guards in white
...
