Poetry

"Ne bo the song neuer so murie, þat he ne shal þinche wel unmurie зef he ilesteþ ouer unwille."

"Vor sumeres-tide is al to wlonc, an doþ misreken monnes þonk: vor he ne recþ noзt of clennesse, al his þoзt is of golnesse."

"Nus hom n'est si esbahis, Tant dolans ni entrepris, De grant mal amaladis, Si il l'oit, ne soit garis, Et de joie resbaudis, Tant par est douce."

"C'en paradis ne vont fors tex gens con je vous dirai. Il i vont cil viel prestre et cil viel clop. et cil manke, qui totejor et tote nuit cropent devant ces autex et en ces viés cruutes, et cil a ces viés capes eréses et a ces viés tatereles vestues, qui sont nu et decauç et estrumelé qui moeurent de faim et de soi et de froit et de mesaises."

"Mais en infer voil jou aler. Car en infer vont li bel clerc, et li bel cevalier, qui sont mort as tornois et as rices gueres, et li buen sergant, et li franc home. Aveuc ciax voil jou aler. Et s'i vont les beles dames cortoises, que eles ont deus amis ou trois avoc leur barons. Et s'i va li ors et li argens, et li vairs. et li gris; et si i vont harpeor et jogleor; et li roi del siecle. Avoc ciax voil jou aler, mais que j'aie Nicolcte, ma trés douce amie, aveuc mi."

"The most beautiful story of the Middle Ages, Aucassin and Nicolette, one of the few perfectly beautiful stories in the world…cannot be made into a representative medieval romance: there is nothing else like it; and the qualities that make it what it is are the opposite of the rhetorical self-possession, the correct and deliberate narrative of Chrestien and his school."

"Qui vauroit bons vers oïr Del deport du viel antif, De deus biax enfans petis, Nicholete et Aucassins, Des grans paines q'il soufri, et de proueces q'il fist, Por s'amie o le cler vis?"

"There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The Earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more."

"And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

"Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young Lambs bound As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts today Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind."

"Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither."

"O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:— Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!"

"Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul's immensity; Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,— Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave."

"As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation."

"The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day."

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy."

"Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"

"Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel— I feel it all. Oh evil day! if I were sullen While the Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning."

"The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth."

"The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he, "Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality." "But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark."

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death. "'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want."

"A second voice was at mine ear, A little whisper silver-clear, A murmur, "Be of better cheer". As from some blissful neighbourhood, A notice faintly understood, "I see the end, and know the good". A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, "I may not speak of what I know"."

"Like an Aeolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes: Such seem'd the whisper at my side: "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied: So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,To feel, altho' no tongue can prove That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love."

"So variously seem'd all things wrought, I marvell'd how the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought; And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!""

"I wept, 'Tho' I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow; 'And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.'"

"And forth into the fields I went, And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent. I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers: You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder'd, while I paced along: The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seem'd no room for sense of wrong."

""Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? "The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf."

""Nay­ rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise. "When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung. "I sung the joyful Paean clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear — "Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life — "Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love —"As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about — "To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law: "At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed, "To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause — "In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown..."

""Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood."If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?"Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all. "Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain. "Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little worth."

""That men with knowledge merely play'd, I told thee — hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; "Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind. "For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon."

"I said, 'The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance."

"'Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro' night: the world is wide.'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.'Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?'It spake, moreover, in my mind: 'Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind. 'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse."

"A still small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?" Then to the still small voice I said; 'Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made.'"

"Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest nights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. "Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. "I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. "If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; "And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower "Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all."

"O dull, one-sided voice," said I, "Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? "I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds."I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven:"Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream";"But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head — "Which did accomplish their desire, — Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. "He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones: "But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face."

"I said, "I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse. "And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new: "Or that this anguish fleeting hence, Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence: "For I go, weak from suffering here; Naked I go, and void of cheer: What is it that I may not fear?""

""If all be dark, vague voice," I said, "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. "The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? "I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew."

""Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? "Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? "He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies. "Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery: He names the name Eternity."That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself in every wind."He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end."The end and the beginning vex His reason: many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks. "He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. "Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn. Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn. "Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt."

""Yet how should I for certain hold, Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould? "I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain. "It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round. "As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro' from state to state. "As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again. "So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch."

""But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace; "Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night. "Or if thro' lower lives I came — Tho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame — "I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not. "And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. "Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory: "For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime?"

"Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams — "Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare."

"Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame."

"Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away."

"How fares it with the happy dead? For here the man is more and more; But he forgets the days before God shut the doorways of his head."

"My own dim life should teach me this That life shall live for evermore."

"Whose faith has centre everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form."

"Her eyes are homes of silent prayer."

"I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

"When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech."

"Who keeps the keys of all the creeds."