40

X.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd-" La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

XI.

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.

XII.

45 And this is why I sojourn here

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake
And no birds sing.

SONNETS

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

(Written 1816)

XI.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
5 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer rul'd as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

10

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

SONNET

(June, 1816)

To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair

And open face of heaven,-to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
5 Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear

10

Catching the notes of Philomel,—an eye
Watching the sailing cloudlets' bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.

XV.

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET

(Written December 30th, 1816)

The poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; 5 That is the Grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done

With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

10

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there
shrills

The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

LAST SONNET

(Written on a Blank Page in Shakespeare's Poems, Facing A Lover's Complaint")

(Written 1820)

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

5 The moving waters at their priestlike task

10

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death.

James Henry Leigh hunt

1784-1859

TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET

(1816)

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;

5 And you, warm little housekeeper, who class With those who think the candles come too soon, Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;

Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong, 10 One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are

strong

At your clear hearts; and both seem giv'n to earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural songIn doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.

Walter Savage Landor

1775-1864

MILD IS THE PARTING YEAR, AND SWEET

(Collected Works, 1846)

Mild is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;

Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.

5 I wait its close, I court its gloom,

But mourn that never must there fall

Or on my breast or on my tomb

The tear that would have sooth'd it all.

AH WHAT AVAILS THE SCEPTERED RACE
(From the same)

Ah what avails the sceptered race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine,

5 Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,

A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.

YES; I WRITE VERSES

(From the same)

Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talkt of by young men

As rather clever:

5 In the last quarter are my eyes, You see it by their form and size; Is it not time then to be wise?

Or now or never.

Fairest that ever sprang from Eve! 10 While Time allows the short reprieve, Just look at me! would you believe

UNIVIE OF CHE

'Twas once a lover?

I cannot clear the five-bar gate

But, trying first its timber's state,

15 Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait

20

To trundle over.

Thro' gallopade I cannot swing

The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring:
I cannot say the tender thing,

Be't true or false,
And am beginning to opine

Those girls are only half-divine

Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine

In giddy waltz.

25 I fear that arm above that shoulder, I wish them wiser, graver, older, Sedater, and no harm if colder

And panting less.

Ah! people were not half so wild 30 In former days, when starchly mild, Upon her high-heel'd Essex smiled

The Brave Queen Bess.