SONG

RARELY, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night?

Many a weary night and day 'T is since thou art fled away.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.

Spirit false! thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

12

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;

Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee, that thou art not near,

And reproach thou wilt not hear.

Let me set my mournful ditty

To a merry measure,

Thou wilt never come for pity,

Thou wilt come for pleasure,

18

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves drest,
And the starry night;

Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.

I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;

I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Every thing almost

Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.

I love tranquil solitude,

And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good;

Between thee and me

What difference? but thou dost possess

The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love-though he has wings,
And like light can flee,

But above all other things,

Spirit, I love thee

Thou art love and life!

Oh come,

Make once more my heart thy home.

24

30

36

42

1821. 1824.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

DREAM-PEDLARY

If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,

That shakes from Life's fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.

If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,

And the crier rang the bell,

What would you buy?

A cottage lone and still,

With bowers nigh,

Shadowy, my woes to still,

Until I die.

Such pearl from Life's fresh crown

Fain would I shake me down.

Were dreams to have at will,

This would best heal my ill,
This would I buy.

But there were dreams to sel!

Ill didst thou buy;

Life is a dream, they tell,

Waking, to die.

10

19

Dreaming a dream to prize,

Is wishing ghosts to rise;
And, if I had the spell
To call the buried well,
Which one would I?

If there are ghosts to raise,
What shall I call,

Out of hell's murky haze,
Heaven's blue pall?

Raise my loved long-lost boy
To lead me to his joy.-
There are no ghosts to raise;
Out of death lead no ways;
Vain is the call.

Know'st thou not ghosts to sue?

No love thou hast.

-Else lie, as I will do,

And breathe thy last.

So out of Life's fresh crown
Fall like a rose-leaf down.
Thus are the ghosts to woo;
Thus are all dreams made true,

28

37

1851.

Ever to last!

Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

GOOD-BY

GOOD-BY, proud world! I'm going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.

40

Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,

Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world! I'm going home.

Good-by to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;'
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-by, proud world! I'm going home.

I'm going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone,—
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

6

14

22

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; //
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet? 30
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

1839.