With its sick hurry, its divided aims,

Its heads o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife -
Fly hence, our contact fear!

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Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!

Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern

From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude!

Stiil nursing the unconquerable hope,
Still clutching the inviolable shade,

With a free, onward impulse brushing through,
By night, the silver'd branches of the glade
Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,
On some mild pastoral slope
Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales
Freshen thy flowers as in former years
With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales!

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But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!

For strong the infection of our mental strife,

Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;

And we should win thee from thy own fair life,
Like us distracted, and like us unblest.
Soon, soon thy cheer would die,

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Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers,
And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;
And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,

Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-facing brow

Among the Ægæan isles;

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And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,

Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,

Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steep'd in brine

And knew the intruders on his ancient home,

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The young light-hearted masters of the waves
And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail;

And day and night held on indignantly
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,

To where the Atlantic raves

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Outside the western straits; and unbent sails

There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!

One last look at the white-wall'd town,

And the little grey church on the windy shore;
Then come down!

She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday

We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,

Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;

Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,,{
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday

(Call yet once) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me,

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On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,

And the youngest sate on her knee.

She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,

When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.

She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;

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She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
"Twill be Easter-time in the world ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."

I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

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Children dear, were we long alone?

"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan ; Long prayers," I said, in the world they say;

Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay. →
We went up the beach, by the sandy down

Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.

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From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.

We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 75 She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:

Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.
But, ah, she gave me never a look,

For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!

Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,

Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,

For the humming street, and the child with its toy!

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For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;

For the wheel where I spun,

And the blessed light of the sun!"

And so she sings her fill,

Singing most joyfully,

Till the spindle drops from her hand,

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And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,

And over the sand at the sea;

And her eyes are set in a stare ;

And anon there breaks a sigh,

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And anon there drops a tear,

From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,

A long, long sigh;

For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden

And the gleam of her golden hair.

The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,

When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
'From heaths starr'd with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly

On the blanch'd sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,

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