Volume Ii Part 5 (1/2)
Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes, And mild leaves m.u.f.fle the keen sun's dart; Lie still, for the wind on the warm seas dozes, And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.
Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?
Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?
What bids the lips of thy sleep dispart?
Only the song of a secret bird.
The green land's name that a charm encloses, It never was writ in the traveller's chart, And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is, It never was sold in the merchant's mart.
The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart, And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard; No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart, Only the song of a secret bird.
ENVOI In the world of dreams I have chosen my part, To sleep for a season and hear no word Of true love's truth or of light love's art, Only the song of a secret bird.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]
ENDYMION
The rising moon has hid the stars; Her level rays, like golden bars, Lie on the landscape green, With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams Had dropped her silver bow Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this, She woke Endymion with a kiss, When, sleeping in the grove, He dreamed not of her love.
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, Love gives itself, but is not bought; Nor voice, nor sound betrays Its deep, impa.s.sioned gaze.
It comes,--the beautiful, the free, The crown of all humanity,-- In silence and alone To seek the elected one.
It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep Are life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, And kisses the closed eyes Of him who slumbering lies.
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies Are fraught with fear and pain, Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own.
Responds,--as if with unseen wings, An angel touched its quivering strings; And whispers, in its song, ”Where hast thou stayed so long?”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]
FATE
Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart, And speak in different tongues and have no thought Each of the other's being, and no heed.
And these, o'er unknown seas, to unknown lands Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death; And all unconsciously shape every act And bend each wandering step to this one end-- That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.
And two shall walk some narrow way of life So nearly side by side that, should one turn Ever so little s.p.a.ce to left or right, They needs must stand acknowledged, face to face.
And, yet, with wistful eyes that never meet And groping hands that never clasp and lips Calling in vain to ears that never hear, They seek each other all their weary days And die unsatisfied--and this is Fate!