Ah, what begetteth all this storm of bliss

But Death himself, who, crying solemnly, E'en from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness, Bids us "Rejoice! lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by.

Stretch forth your open hands, and, while ye live,

Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give"?

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3

MAY

O LOVE, this morn when the sweet nightingale
Had so long finished all he had to say,
That thou hadst slept, and sleep had told his tale;
And midst a peaceful dream had stolen away
In fragrant dawning of the first of May,
Didst thou see aught? didst thou hear voices
sing

Ere to the risen sun the bells 'gan ring?

For then methought the Lord of Love went by To take possession of his flowery throne, Ringed round with maids, and youths, and minstrelsy;

A little while I sighed to find him gone, A little while the dawning was alone, And the light gathered; then I held my breath, And shuddered at the sight of Eld and Death. 14

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Alas! Love passed me in the twilight dun,
His music hushed the wakening ousel's song;
But on these twain shone out the golden sun,
And o'er their heads the brown bird's tune

was strong,

As shivering, twixt the trees they stole along; None noted aught their noiseless passing by, The world had quite forgotten it must die.

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4

OCTOBER

O LOVE, turn from the unchanging sea, and gaze Down these grey slopes upon the year grown old,

A-dying mid the autumn-scented haze,"

That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold,

Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infold Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead,

Wrought in dead days for men a long while

dead.

Come down, O love; may not our hands still

meet.

Since still we live to-day, forgetting June, Forgetting May, deeming October sweet-

-O hearken, hearken! through the afternoon,

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The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune!

Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath,

Too satiate of life to strive with death.

And we too will it not be soft and kind,

That rest from life, from patience and from pain,

That rest from bliss we know not when we find. That rest from Love which ne'er the end can gain?

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-Hark, how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane!

Look up, love!-ah, cling close and never move! How can I have enough of life and love?

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1868-70.

William Morris.

THE GREEN LINNET

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head.
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,

In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!

And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

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One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:-
Hail to Thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding Spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May;
And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment:

A Life, a Presence like the Air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair;
Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,
Yet seeming still to hover;

There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives,
A Brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

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24

32

As if by that exulting strain

He mocked and treated with disdain

The voiceless Form he chose to feign,

While fluttering in the bushes.

1803. 1807.

40

William Wordsworth.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed,

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

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