Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. MATTHEW ARNOLD. SHAKESPEARE OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free. To the foil'd searching of mortality; And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow, MATTHEW ARNOLD. A SWEET SONG SUNG NOT YET TO ANY MAN, FROM THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON I KNOW a little garden close And though within it no birds sing, And though no pillared house is there, And though the apple boughs are bare Of fruit and blossom, would to God Her feet upon the green grass trod, And I beheld them as before. There comes a murmur from the shore, For which I cry both day and night, Still have I left a little breath To seek the unforgotten face Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me Anigh the murmuring of the sea. WILLIAM MORRIS. DIRGE IN WOODS A WIND sways the pines, Not a breath of wild air; Still as the mosses that glow Rushes life in a race, As the clouds the clouds chase; And we go, And we drop like the fruits of the tree, Even we, Even so. GEORGE MEREDITH. THE SOLDIER IF I should die, think only this of me: In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; And think, this heart, all evil shed away, Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. RUPERT BROOKE. THE SHEPHERDESS SHE walks the lady of my delight — A shepherdess of sheep. Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She feeds them on the fragrant height, And folds them in for sleep. She roams maternal hills and bright, The chastest stars may peep. She walks the lady of my delight - She holds her little thoughts in sight, She walks the lady of my delight A shepherdess of sheep. ALICE MEYNELL. Lovely thy tarrying, lovely too is night: Pass, thou wild heart, Wild heart of youth that still Hast half a will To stay. I grow too old a comrade, let us part. Pass thou away. SIR WILLIAM WATSON. THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS I WENT out to the hazel wood, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, When I had laid it on the floor\ |