A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,

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 orchis, bring the foxglove spire, The little speedwell's darling blue, Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew, Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

O thou, new-year, delaying long, Delayest the sorrow in my blood, That longs to burst a frozen bud, And flood a fresher throat with song.

Now fades the last long streak of snow; Now bourgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drowned in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood, that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast

Spring wakens too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,

And buds and blossoms like the rest.

ALFRED TENNYSON

DIE DOWN, O DISMAL DAY!

DIE down, O dismal day, and let me live; And come, blue deeps, magnificently strewn The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, By upper winds through pompous motions blown. With colored clouds,-large, light, and fugitive,—

The best-beloved Night!

Now it is death in life, -
- a vapor dense
Creeps round my window, till I cannot see
The far snow-shining mountains, and the glens
Shagging the mountain tops. O God! make free
This barren shackled earth, so deadly cold,
Breathe gently forth thy spring, till winter flies
In rude amazement, fearful and yet bold,
While she performs her customed charities;
I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare, -
O God, for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet air!

DAVID GRAY.

SUMMER LONGINGS.

AH! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May, -

Waiting for the pleasant rambles
Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles,
With the woodbine alternating,
Scent the dewy way.

Ah my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May,
Longing to escape from study,
To the young face fair and ruddy,
And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.

Ah my heart is sick with longing,

Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May,

Sighing for their sure returning,
When the summer beams are burning,
Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying,
All the winter lay.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of
quivers,

Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamor of waters, and with might;
Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet!
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the
night.

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees and cling?
O that man's heart were as fire and could spring
to her,

Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest-wind and the west-wind
sing.

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing, And in green underwood and cover

Throbbing for the May,

Throbbing for the seaside billows,
Or the water-wooing willows;

Where, in laughing and in sobbing,
Glide the streams away.

Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing.
Throbbing for the May.

Waiting sad, dejected, weary,
Waiting for the May:

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower and flower to fruit ;
And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
And the oat is heard above the lyre,
And the hooféd heel of a satyr crushes

The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight
The Mænad and the Bassarid;
And soft as lips that laugh and hide,
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair

Over her eyebrows shading her eyes;
The wild vine slipping down leaves bare

Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare
The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

THE WINTER BEING OVER.

THE winter being over,
In order comes the spring,
Which doth green herbs discover,
And cause the birds to sing.
The night also expired,

Then comes the morning bright,
Which is so much desired

By all that love the light.
This may learn

Them that mourn,
To put their grief to flight:

The spring succeedeth winter,
And day must follow night.

He therefore that sustaineth
Affliction or distress
Which every member paineth,
And findeth no release,
Let such therefore despair not,
But on firm hope depend,
Whose griefs immortal are not,
And therefore must have end.
They that faint
With complaint

Therefore are to blame;
They add to their afflictions,
And amplify the same.

For if they could with patience
Awhile possess the mind,
By inward consolations
They might refreshing find,
To sweeten all their crosses
That little time they 'dure;
So might they gain by losses,.
And sharp would sweet procure.
But if the mind
Be inclined

To unquietness,

That only may be called The worst of all distress.

He that is melancholy,
Detesting all delight,
His wits by sottish folly
Are ruinated quite.

Sad discontent and murmurs
To him are incident;
Were he possessed of honors,
He could not be content.
Sparks of joy

Fly away;
Floods of care arise;
And all delightful motion
In the conception dies.

WRITTEN WHILE A PRISONER IN ENGLAND.

THE Time hath laid his mantle by

Of wind and rain and icy chill,

And dons a rich embroidery

Of sunlight poured on lake and hill.

No beast or bird in earth or sky,

Whose voice doth not with gladness thrill; For Time hath laid his mantle by Of wind and rain and icy chill. River and fountain, brook and rill, Bespangled o'er with livery gay Of silver droplets, wind their way. All in their new apparel vie, For Time hath laid his mantle by.

CHARLES OF ORLEANS.

RETURN OF SPRING.

[Translation.]

GOD shield ye, heralds of the spring,
Ye faithful swallows, fleet of wing,
Houps, cuckoos, nightingales,
Turtles, and every wilder bird,
That make your hundred chirpings heard
Through the green woods and dales.
God shield ye, Easter daisies all,
Fair roses, buds, and blossoms small,
And he whom erst the gore

Of Ajax and Narciss did print,
Ye wild thyme, anise, balm, and mint,
I welcome ye once more.

God shield ye, bright embroidered train
Of butterflies, that on the plain

Of each sweet herblet sip; And ye, new swarms of bees, that go Where the pink flowers and yellow grow To kiss them with your lip.