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I remember, I remember

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember

The fir-trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.

566

SIR AUBREY DE VERE

[1788-1846]

GLENGARIFF

I

GAZING from each low bulwark of this bridge,
How wonderful the contrast! Dark as night,
Here, amid cliffs and woods, with headlong might
The black stream whirls, through ferns and drooping sedge,
'Neath twisted roots moss-brown, and weedy ledge,
Gushing-aloft, from yonder birch-clad height
Leaps into air a cataract, snow-white;

Falling to gulfs obscure. The mountain ridge,
Like a grey Warder, guardian of the scene,
Above the cloven gorge gloomily towers:
O'er the dim woods a gathering tempest lours;
Save where athwart the moist leaves' lucid green
A sunbeam, glancing through disparted showers,
Sparkles along the rill with diamond sheen!

567

II

A sun-burst on the Bay! Turn and behold!
The restless waves, resplendent in their glory,
Sweep glittering past yon purpled promontory,
Bright as Apollo's breastplate. Bathed in gold,
Yon bastioned islet gleams. Thin mists are rolled,
Translucent, through each glen. A mantle hoary
Veils those peaked hills shapely as e'er in story
Delphic, or Alpine, or Vesuvian old,

Minstrels have sung. From rock and headland proud
The wild wood spreads its arms around the bay:

The manifold mountain cones, now dark, now bright, Now seen, now lost, alternate from rich light To spectral shade; and each dissolving cloud Reveals new mountains while it floats away.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE

[1796-1849]

SHE IS NOT FAIR

SHE is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be;

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me.

O 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,

568

JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE
[1775-1841]

TO NIGHT

MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! Creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

569

GEORGE DARLEY

[1795-1846]

THE LOVELINESS OF LOVE

It is not Beauty I demand,

A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:

Tell me not of your starry eyes,

Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed:-

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks
Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,
A breath that softer music speaks
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,

These are but gauds; nay, what are lips:
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer slips
Full oft he perisheth on them.

And what are cheeks but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good?

Eyes can with baleful ardour burn;

Poison can breathe, than erst perfumed; There's many a white hand holds an urn With lovers' hearts to dust consumed.

For crystal brows there's nought within;
They are but empty cells for pride;
He who the Syren's hair would win
Is mostly strangled in the tide.

Give me, instead of Beauty's bust,
A tender heart, a loyal mind
Which with temptation I would trust,
Yet never link'd with error find,—

One in whose gentle bosom I

Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the case-burthen'd honey-fly

That hides his murmurs in the rose

My earthly Comforter! whose love
So indefeasible might be
That, when my spirit wonn'd above

Hers could not stay, for sympathy.

570

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,

LORD MACAULAY

[1800-1859]

THE ARMADA

ATTEND, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise; I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,

When that great fleet invincible against her bore in vain
The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain:
It was about the lovely close of a warm summer day,
There came a gallant merchant-ship full sail to Plymouth
Bay;

Her crew had seen Castile's black fleet beyond Aurigny's isle,

At earliest twilight, on the waves lie heaving many a mile. At sunrise she escaped their van, by God's especial grace, And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along the coast, And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post.

With his white hair, unbonneted, the stout old sheriff comes; Behind him march the halberdiers; before him sound the drums;

His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample

space;

For there behoves him to set up the standard of Her Grace. And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance the bells, As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon swells. Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient crown, And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay lilies down. So stalked he when he turned to flight, on that famed Picard field,

Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and Caesar's eagle shield.

So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned to bay,

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