Part 58 (1/2)

G.o.dFREY

Nay, but I know this melancholy mood; 'Twas your poetic fancy when a boy.

RICHARD

For Fancy cannot live on real food: In youth she will despise familiar joy To dwell in mournful shades; as they grow real, Then buildeth she of joy her far ideal.

G.o.dFREY

And so perverteth all. This stream to me Sings, and in sunny ripples lingeringly The water saith 'Ah me! where have I lept?

Into what garden of life? what banks are these, What secret lawns, what ancient towers and trees?

Where the young sons of heav'n, with shouts of play Or low delighted speech, welcome the day, As if the poetry of the earth had slept To wake in ecstasy. O stay me! alas!

Stay me, ye happy isles, ere that I pa.s.s Without a memory on my sullen course By the black city to the tossing seas!'

RICHARD

So might this old oak say 'My heart is sere; With greater effort every year I force My stubborn leaf.a.ge: soon my branch will crack, And I shall fall or perish in the wrack: And here another tree its crown will rear, And see for centuries the boys at play: And 'neath its boughs, on some fine holiday, Old men shall prate as these.' Come see the game.

G.o.dFREY

Yes, if you will. 'Tis all one picture fair.

RICHARD

Made in a mirror, and who looketh there Must see himself. Is not a dream the same?

G.o.dFREY

_Life is a dream._

RICHARD

And you, who say it, seem Dreaming to speak to a phantom in a dream.

4

ELEGY

THE SUMMER-HOUSE ON THE MOUND

How well my eyes remember the dim path!

My homing heart no happier playground hath.

I need not close my lids but it appears Through the bewilderment of forty years To tempt my feet, my childish feet, between Its leafy walls, beneath its arching green; Fairer than dream of sleep, than Hope more fair Leading to dreamless sleep her sister Care.

There grew two fellow limes, two rising trees, Shadowing the lawn, the summer haunt of bees, Whose stems, engraved with many a russet scar From the spear-hurlings of our mimic war, Pillar'd the portico to that wide walk, A mossy terrace of the native chalk Fas.h.i.+on'd, that led thro' the dark shades around Straight to the wooden temple on the mound.

There live the memories of my early days, There still with childish heart my spirit plays; Yea, terror-stricken by the fiend despair When she hath fled me, I have found her there; And there 'tis ever noon, and glad suns bring Alternate days of summer and of spring, With childish thought, and childish faces bright, And all unknown save but the hour's delight.

High on the mound the ivied arbour stood, A dome of straw upheld on rustic wood: Hidden in fern the steps of the ascent, Whereby unto the southern front we went, And from the dark plantation climbing free, Over a valley look'd out on the sea.