Volume Iii Part 22 (1/2)

What is it we can do for you?

Speak out before you die.

His face is growing sharp and thin.

Alack! our friend is gone.

Close up his eyes; tie up his chin; Step from the corpse, and let him in That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door.

There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR

”Orphan Hours, the Year is dead: Come and sigh, come and weep.”

”Merry Hours, smile instead, For the Year is but asleep.

See, it smiles as it is sleeping, Mocking your untimely weeping.”

”As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So white Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the death-cold Year to-day; Solemn Hours! wail aloud For your mother in her shroud.”

”As the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days Rocks the Year:--be calm and mild, Trembling Hours; she will arise With new love within her eyes.

”January gray is here, Like a s.e.xton by her grave; February bears the bier; March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps--but, O, ye Hours, Follow with May's fairest flowers.”

Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley [1792-1822]

WOOD AND FIELD AND RUNNING BROOK

WALDEINSAMKEIT

I do not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; The forest is my loyal friend, Like G.o.d it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make Of skirting hills to lie, Bound in by streams which give and take Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime, Or down the oaken glade, O what have I to do with time?