The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song

And Winter barricades the realms of frost;

He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay;

Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day!

The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,

And shows his miseries in distant lands;

Condemned a needy suppliant to wait,

While ladies interpose and slaves debate.

But did not Chance at length her error mend?

Did no subverted empire mark his end?

Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound.

Or hostile millions press him to the ground?

His fall was destined to a barren strand,

A petty fortress and a dubious hand;

He left a name at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral or adorn a tale.

[From London.]

THE FATE OF POVERTY.

By numbers here from shame or

censure free,

All crimes are safe but hated poverty. This, only this, the rigid law pursues, This, only this, provokes the snarling

muse.

BEN JONSON.

TO CELIA.

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine:
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be:

The thirst that from the soul doth But thou thereon didst only breathe

And sent'st it back to me:

Since when it grows, and smells, I

HYMN TO CYNTHIA.

QUEEN and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess, excellently bright!

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose:
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess, excellently bright!

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal shining quiver: Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever; Thou that mak'st a day of night, Goddess, excellently bright!

THE SWEET NEGLECT. STILL to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast: Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me,

breath,

EVER let the fancy roam; And so live ever,- or else swoon to Pleasure never is at home;

death.

ODE ON THE POETS.

BARDS of passion and of mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wonder-

ous

And the parle of voices thunderous;

At a touch sweet pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let wingèd fancy wander
Through the thought still spread be-
yond her;

Open wide the mind's cage-door,-
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet fancy! let her loose!
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the spring
Fades as does its blossoming.
Autumn's red-lipped fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,

Cloys with tasting. What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

[From Endymion.]

BEAUTY'S IMMORTALITY.

A THING of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will
keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and
quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we
wreathing

[her.
send A flowery band to bind us to the
earth,

To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overawed,
Fancy, high-commissioned:
She has vassals to attend her;
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped autumn's wealth;
With a still, mysterious stealth;
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it,-thou shalt

hear

Distant harvest-carols clear,—
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn;
And, in the same moment,― hark!
'Tis the early April lark,-

Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath
burst;

Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its cellèd sleep;
And the snake, all winter-thin,
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering
While the autumn breezes sing.

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman

dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun,
the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a
shady boon
[dils
For simple sheep; and such are daffo-
With the green world they live in;
and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert

make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest

brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair muskrose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

All lovely tales that we have heard or

read:

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his

pards,

But on the viewless wings of poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, [fays: Clustered around by all her starry But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruittree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath; [die, Now more than ever seems it rich to To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain,

To thy high requiem become a sod.

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