Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild, If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place ; Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for evermore, She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor : Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more: But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette. Goodnight, sweet mother: call me before the day is born. CONCLUSION. I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am ; O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair! A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed. He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin. I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, And then did something speak to me-I know not what was said; But you were sleeping; and I said, 'It's not for them: it's mine.' So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret ; O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done For ever and for ever with those just souls and true And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado? For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home— II. Why are we weigh'd upon. with heaviness, weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil We only toil, who are the first of things, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 'There is no joy but calm !' In ever climbing up the climbing wave? In silence; ripen, fall and cease: V. How sweet it were, hearing the down- With half-shut eyes ever to seem To dream and dream, like yonder amber Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; To hear each other's whisper'd speech; Why should we only toil, the roof and Eating the Lotos day by day, crown of things? III. Lo in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. IV. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, To war with evil? Is there any peace To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray; To muse and brood and live again in With those old faces of our infancy VI. Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, For surely now our household hearths are Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold sings Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, things. Is there confusion in the little isle? The Gods are hard to reconcile : VII. But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) With half-dropt eyelid still, Beneath a heaven dark and holy, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill— To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling Thro' many a wov'n acanthus - wreath divine ! Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine. VIII. The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: The Lotos blows by every winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer-some, 'tis whisper'd-down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. On the hills like Gods together, careless The spacious times of great Elizabeth of mankind. With sounds that echo still. |