“ Come back! come back!” he cried in grief,
“ Across this stormy water ; And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter! Oh my daughter!"
'Twas vain :—the loud waves lash'd the shore,
Return or aid preventing.
The waters wild went o'er his child,
And he was left lamenting.
CAMPBELL.
SHOT an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song ?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
O WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU,
MY LAD.
WHISTLE, and I'll come to you, my lad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad; Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad, O wbistle, and I'll come to you, my lad !
But warily tent, when you come to court me,
And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee;
Syne up the back-stile and let naebody see,
And come as ye were na comin' to me.
At kirk, or at market, whene'er
Gang by me as tho' that ye cared na a flie ;
But steal me a blink o'your bonnie black e'e ;
Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me.
Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me,
And whyles ye may lightly my beauty a wee;
But court na anither, tho' jokin' ye be,
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me.
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad ;
Tho' father and mither and a' should
gae mad, O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad !
BURNS.
O am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, The which he will not every
hour
survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain-jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you, as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest
By new unfolding his imprison’d pride.
Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph, or being lack'd, to hope.
SHAKESPEARE.
KUBLA KHAN; OR, A VISION IN A
[One day in the summer of 1797, Coleridge tells us,
being at a farm-house on Exmoor, he fell asleep in his chair after reading in“ Purchas's Pilgrimage" these or some such words, “ Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto: and thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall," and waking after three hours, was aware that a long chain of verse had linked itself in his mind. He instantly wrote down the following words; but being then called away on business and detained above an hour, he found on his return that, save some scattered lines and images, the remainder of the beautiful dream-symphony was fled: nor could he ever after recover it.]
N Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alpha, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossom’d many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise,
COLERIDGE.
HE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love :
A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave,—and, oh,
The difference to me!
WORDSWORTH.
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