Swords that are with slaughter wild
Hunt the mother and the child.
Who will take them from the light?
-Yonder is a man in sight-
Yonder is a house-but where?
No, they must not enter there.
To the caves, and to the brooks,
To the clouds of Heaven she looks;
She is speechless, but her eyes
Pray in ghostly agonies.
Blissful Mary, Mother mild,
Maid and Mother undefiled,
Save a mother and her child!
Now who is he that bounds with joy On Carrock's side, a shepherd boy? No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass Light as the wind along the grass. Can this be he who hither came In secret, like a smothered flame, O'er whom such thankful tears were shed For shelter, and a poor man's bread? God loves the child; and God hath willed That those dear words should be fulfilled, The lady's words, when forced away The last she to her babe did say: 'My own, my own, thy fellow-guest I may not be; but rest thee, rest, For lowly shepherd's life is best !'
Alas! when evil men are strong No life is good, no pleasure long. The boy must part from Mosedale's groves, And leave Blencathara's rugged coves, And quit the flowers that summer brings To Glenderamakin's lofty springs; Must vanish, and his careless cheer Be turned to heaviness and fear.
-Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise !
Hear it, good man, old in days!
Thou tree of covert and of rest,
For this young bird that is distrest!
Among thy branches safe he lay,
And he was free to sport and play,
When falcons were abroad for prey.
A recreant harp that sings of fear
And heaviness in Clifford's ear!
I said, when evil men are strong,
No life is good, no pleasure long:
A weak and cowardly untruth !
Our Clifford was a happy youth,
And thankful through a weary time,
That brought him up to manhood's prime.
-Again he wanders forth at will,
And tends a flock from hill to hill.
His garb is humble; ne'er was seen
Such garb with such a noble mien;
Among the shepherd-grooms no mate
Hath he, a child of strength and state!
Yet lacks not friends for solemn glee,
And a cheerful company,
That learned of him submissive ways,
And comforted his private days.
To his side the fallow-deer
Came, and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty;
And both the undying fish that swim
Through Bowscale Tarn did wait on him;
The pair were servants of his eye
In their immortality;
They moved about in open sight,
To and fro, for his delight.
He knew the rocks which angels haunt
On the mountains visitant;
He hath kenned them taking wing:
And the caves where fairies sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old.
Among the Heavens his eye can see
Face of thing that is to be;
And, if men report him right,
He could whisper words of might.
-Now another day is come,
Fitter hope, and nobler doom.
He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book.
Armour rusting in his halls
On the blood of Clifford calls :-
'Quell the Scot,' exclaims the lance-
'Bear me to the heart of France,'
Is the longing of the shield-
Tell thy name, thou trembling field;
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!
Happy day, and mighty hour,
When our Shepherd, in his power,
Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,
To his ancestors restored
Like a re-appearing star,
Like a glory from afar,
First shall head the Flock of War!'
IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail;
And 'mid those dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
An on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware, beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
JOHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And mony a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go ;
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
|