Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar

10 Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

15 Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

20 Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The sea of faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear

25 Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

30 To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

35 And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and

flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night,

LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS

(From Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems, 1852)

In this lone, open glade I lie,

Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,

Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!

5 Birds here make song, each bird has his,
Across the girdling city's hum.

How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
10 To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a thrush flit overhead
Deep in her unknown day's employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass,
What endless, active life is here!
15 What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear.

Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod
Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out,
And, eased of basket and of rod,

20 Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout.

In the huge world, which roars hard by,
Be others happy if they can!

But in my helpless cradle I

Was breathed on by the rural Pan.

25 I on men's impious uproar hurl'd,
Think often, as I hear them rave,
That peace has left the upper world
And now keeps only in the grave,

Yet here is peace for ever new !
30 When I who watch them am away,

Still all things in this glade go through
The changes of their quiet day.

Then to their happy rest they pass! The flowers upclose, the birds are fed, 35 The night comes down upon the grass, The child sleeps warmly in his bed.

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,

That there abides a peace of thine 40 Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.

SELF-DEPENDENCE

(From the same)

Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

5 And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send:

"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, 10 On my heart your mighty charm renew; Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,
Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

15 In the rustling night-air came the answer:
“Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.

“Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them 20 Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

“And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

25 "Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see."

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, 30 A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: "Resolve to be thyself; and know, that he Who finds himself, loses his misery!"

SHAKSPEARE

(From The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems, 1849) Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

5 Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base

To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams

know,

10 Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self

secure,

Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.-Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti

1828-1882

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL

(Third Version, from Poems, 1870)

The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;

5 She had three lilies in her hand.

10

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,

But a white rose of Mary's gift,
For service meetly worn;

Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;

15 The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;

Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.