210

The Rover

'She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulléd me asleep,

And there I dream'd-Ah! woe betide t The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all,
They cried" La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

'I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapéd wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.'

J. KEATS

A

CXCIV

THE ROVER

weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!

To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,

And press the rue for wine.

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE

When the lamp is shatter'd

The light in the dust lies dead

When the cloud is scatter'd,

The rainbow's glory is shed.

When the lute is broken,

Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour

Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute

211

212

The Maid of Neidpath

No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruin'd cell,
Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possesst.
O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier ?

Its passions will rock thee

As the storms rock the ravens on high;

Bright reason will mock thee

Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

P. B. SHELLEY

CXCVI

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

O lovers' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing ;
And love, in life's extremity,

Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary's bower

And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neid path's tower
To watch her Love's returning.

The Maid of Neidpath

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decay'd by pining,
Till through her wasted hand, at night,
You saw the taper shining.
By fits a sultry hectic hue

Across her cheek was flying;
By fits so ashy pale she grew
Her maidens thought her dying

Yet keenest powers to see and hear
Seem'd in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear
She heard her lover's riding;

Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd
She knew and waved to greet him,
And o'er the battlement did bend
As on the wing to meet him.

He came he pass'd-an heedless gaze
As o'er some stranger glancing;
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
Lost in his courser's prancing-
The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
Returns each whisper spoken,

Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
Which told her heart was broken.

213

SIR W. SCOTT

CXCVII

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

Earl March look'd on his dying child,
And, smit with grief to view her—
The youth, he cried, whom I exiled
Shall be restored to woo her.

214

The Maid of Neidpath

She's at the window many an hour
His coming to discover :
And he look'd up to Ellen's bower
And she look'd on her lover—

But ah! so pale, he knew her not,
Though her smile on him was dwelling-
And am I then forgot-forgot?

It broke the heart of Ellen.

In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs,

Her cheek is cold as ashes;

Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes

To lift their silken lashes.

T. CAMPBELL

CXCVIII

Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of
pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors :—
No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair Love's ripening breast
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever, or else swoon to death.

J. KEATS