THE CONCLUSION TO PART I
It was a lovely sight to see The lady Christabel, when she Was praying at the old oak tree. Amid the jagged shadows Of mossy leafless boughs, Kneeling in the moonlight, To make her gentle vows; Her slender palms together prest, Heaving sometimes on her breast; Her face resigned to bliss or bale- Her face, oh call it fair not pale,
And both blue eyes more bright than clear, Each about to have a tear.
With open eyes (ah woe is me !) Asleep, and dreaming fearfully, Fearfully dreaming, yet I wis, Dreaming that alone, which is-
O sorrow and shame! Can this be she, The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree? And lo! the worker of these harms, That holds the maiden in her arms, Seems to slumber still and mild, As a mother with her child.
A star hath set, a star hath risen, O Geraldine! since arms of thine Have been the lovely lady's prison. O Geraldine! one hour was thine- Thou'st had thy will! By tairn and rill, The night-birds all that hour were still. But now they are jubilant anew,
From cliff and tower, tu-whoo! tu-whoo!
Tu-whoo! tu-whoo! from wood and fell!
And see the lady Christabel Gathers herself from out her trance; Her limbs relax, her countenance
Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids Close o'er her eyes; and tears she sheds- Large tears that leave the lashes bright! And oft the while she seems to smile
As infants at a sudden light!
Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep, Like a youthful hermitess,
Beauteous in a wilderness,
Who, praying always, prays in sleep. And, if she move unquietly, Perchance, 'tis but the blood so free, Comes back and tingles in her feet. No doubt, she hath a vision sweet. What if her guardian spirit 'twere, What if she knew her mother near? But this she knows, in joys and woes, That saints will aid if men will call : For the blue sky bends over all!
KUBLA KHAN (1798)
IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, 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 here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed 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 reached 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 played,
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 drank the milk of Paradise.
THE NIGHTINGALE (1798)
'Tis the merry nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!
And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, Which the great lord inhabits not; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and kingcups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and sweet jug jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all- Stirring the air with such an harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.
FROST AT MIDNIGHT
THE frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud-and hark, again! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings: save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of Nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling spirit By its own moods interprets, everywhere
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of thought.
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
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