CLXXVII.

ROBIN HOOD.

TO A FRIEND.

O! those days are gone away,

JOHN KEATS, 1795-1821.

And their hours are old and grey,

And their minutes buried all

Under the down-trodden pall
Of the leaves of many years:
Many times have winter's shears,
Frozen north, and chilling east,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest's whispering fleeces,
Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

No, the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill

Past the heath and up the hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where lone Echo gives the half
To some wight, amazed to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.

On the fairest time of June
You may go, with sun or moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Or the polar ray to right you ;
But you never may behold
Little John, or Robin bold;
Never one, of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fair hostess Merriment,
Down beside the pasture Trent ;
For he left the merry tale,
Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone, the merry morris din ; Gone, the song of Gamelyn; Gone, the tough-belted outlaw Idling in the 'grené shawe;' All are gone away and past! And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his tufted grave, And if Marian should have

Once again her forest days,

She would weep, and he would craze: He would swear, for all his oaks,

Fall'n beneath the dock-yard strokes,

Have rotted on the briny seas;
She would weep that her wild bees
Sang not to her-strange! that honey
Can't be got without hard money!

So it is; yet let us sing
Honour to the old bow-string!
Honour to the bugle-horn!

Honour to the woods unshorn !
Honour to the Lincoln green!
Honour to the archer keen!
Honour to tight Little John,
And the horse he rode upon !
Honour to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honour to Maid Marian,

And to all the Sherwood clan !
Though their days have hurried by,
Let us two a burden try.

CLXXVIII.

N a drear-nighted December,

IN

Too happy, happy trec,

Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them

With a sleety whistle through them;

Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look ;

But with a sweet forgetting,

They stay their crystal fretting,

Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many

A gentle girl and boy;

But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?

To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.

CLXXIX.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE, 1796-1849

SONG.

HE is not fair to outward view

SHE

As many maidens be,
Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me ;
Oh! then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.

But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye:

Her very frowns are fairer far,

Than smiles of other maidens are.