Of their sorrows and delights;

Of their passions and their spites;

Of their glory and their shame ;
What doth strengthen and what maim :—
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,

Double-lived in regions new!

CLXVIII

LOVE

7. Keats

A

LL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She lean'd against the arméd man,
The statue of the arméd knight;
She stood and listen'd to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve !
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I play'd a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story —
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand ;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah !
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face.

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and look'd him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leap'd amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees; And how she tended him in vain ;

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain

And that she nursed him in a cave,
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay ;

;

- His dying words - but when I reach'd That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturb'd her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;

The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherish'd long

She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name. •

Her bosom heaved

she stepp'd aside,

As conscious of my look she stept –
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms, She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face.

'T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art
That I might rather feel, than see
The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

S. T. Coleridge

CLXIX

ALL FOR LOVE

TALK not to me of a name great in story;

The days of our youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?

'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled : Then away with all such from the head that is hoary — What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

O Fame! - if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'T was less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee; Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee; When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

Lord Byron

CLXX

THE OUTLAW

BRIGNALL banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,

And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer-queen.