The moonlight, like a shower of pearls,
Fell o'er this bower of bliss,'
And on the bench sat boys and girls:
My early home was this.

The old house stoop'd just like a cave,
Thatch'd o'er with mosses green;
Winter around the walls would rave,
But all was calm within;

The trees are here all green agen,

Here bees the flowers still kiss,

But flowers and trees seem'd sweeter then : My early home was this.

J. Clare

XXI

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

I wonder do you feel to-day

As I have felt, since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray

In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

For me, I touch'd a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it! First it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,

Some old tomb's ruin; yonder weed

Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange cup amass'd

Five beetles,-blind and green they grope

Among the honey-meal and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope

I traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

Such life there, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles perform'd in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting Nature have her way
While Heaven looks from its towers!

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours, nor mine,-nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? what the core
Of the wound, since wound must be?

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs,-your part, my part In life, for good and ill.

No.

I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth,-I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak-Then the good minute goes.

Already how am I so far

Out of that minute? Must I go

Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

Onward, whenever light winds blow,

Fix'd by no friendly star?

Just when I seem'd about to learn! Where is the thread now? Off again! The old trick! Only I discern

Infinite passion, and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn.

R. Browning

XXII

THE BROOK

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance

Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

XXIII

A. Lord Tennyson

THE GLORY OF NATURE

If only once the chariot of the Morn

Had scatter'd from its wheels the twilight dun, But once the unimaginable Sun

Flash'd godlike through perennial clouds forlorn, And shown us Beauty for a moment born:

If only once blind eyes had seen the Spring
Waking among the triumphs of midnoon,
But once had seen the lovely Summer boon,
Pass by in state like a full robëd king,

The waters dance, the woodlands laugh and sing :

If only once deaf ears had heard the joy

Of the wild birds, or morning breezes blowing, Of silver fountains from their caverns flowing, Or the deep-voiced rivers rolling by,

Then Night eternal fallen from the sky :

If only once weird Time had rent asunder

The curtain of the Clouds, and shown us Night
Climbing into the awful Infinite,

Those stairs whose steps are worlds above and under,
Glory on glory, wonder upon wonder !

If Lightnings lit the Earthquake on his way

But once, or Thunder spake unto the world;
The realm-wide banners of the Wind unfurl'd;
Earth-prison'd Fires broke loose into the day;
Or the great Seas awoke-then slept for aye!

Ah! sure the heart of Man too strongly tried
By godlike presences so vast and fair,
Withering in dread, or sick in love's despair,
Had wept for ever, and to Heaven cried,
Or struck with lightnings of delight had died.

But He though heir of immortality,

With mortal dust too feeble for the sight, Draws through a veil God's overwhelming lightUse arms the soul; anon there moveth by

A more majestic Angel-and we die.

F. Tennyson