Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the trees The dead leaf trembles to the bells. O happy hour! and happier hours O happy hour! behold the bride With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave That has to-day its sunny side. To-day the grave is bright for me, For them the light of life increased Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea. Let all my genial spirits advance To meet and greet a whiter sun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warmed and faces bloom, We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, though in silence, wishing joy. But they must go; the time draws on, And those white-favored horses wait; They rise, but linger, it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. A shade falls on us like the dark Discussing how their courtship grew, Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three times three, And last the dance;-till I retire : Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire: And rise, O moon, from yonder down, And pass the silent-lighted town, The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And touch with shade the bridal doors, To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, moved through life of lower phase, Of those that, eye to eye, shall look No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffered, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod That God, which ever lives and loves, MAUD. I. 1. I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Its lips in the field above are dabbled with bloodred heath, The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers 'Death.' 2. For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found, His who had given me life-O father! O God! was it well? – Mangled, and flatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into the ground: There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell. 3. Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail❜d, And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair, And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd, And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air. 4. I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper'd fright, And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night. 5. Villany somewhere ! whose? One says, we are villains all. Not he his honest fame should at least by me be maintain❜d: But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the Hall, Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us flaccid and drain'd. 6. Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse, Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own; And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone? 7. But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind, When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word? Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword. |