Because the sweet of youth To learn its lingering tune; My joy to memorize In those young eyes? If, like the summer flower That blooms-a fragrant death, To live beyond its breath, Ah, yes, because the rose Fades like the sunset skies; Because rude winter blows Eternity! Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909] "WHERE RUNS THE RIVER" WHERE runs the river? Who can say And blossoms blue? Where runs the river? Hill and wood Yet this we know: O'er whatso plains At last the Vast the stream attains; And I, and you. Francis William Bourdillon [1852 SELF-DEPENDENCE WEARY of myself, and sick of asking And a look of passionate desire O'er the sea and to the stars I send: "Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me, Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! 66 'Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, On my heart your mighty charm renew; Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, In the rustling night-air came the answer: "Unaffrighted by the silence round them, These demand not that the things without them "And with joy the stars perform their shining, "Bounded by themselves, and unregardful O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, Matthew Arnold [1822-1888] HOPE AND FEAR BENEATH the shadow of dawn's aerial cope, Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope, And makes for joy the very darkness dear That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that Fear At noon may rise and pierce the heart of Hope. May Truth first purge her eyesight to discern What once being known leaves time no power to appall; Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn The kind wise word that falls from years that fall— "Hope not thou much, and fear thou not at all." Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] ON HIS BLINDNESS WHEN I consider how my light is spent John Milton [1608-1674] OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT I MET a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] A TURKISH LEGEND A CERTAIN Pasha, dead five thousand years, And had this sentence on the city's gate So these four words above the city's noise And evermore, from the high barbican, Lost is that city's glory. Every gust And all is ruin,-save one wrinkled gate Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907] "EVEN THIS SHALL PASS AWAY" ONCE in Persia reigned a King, Who upon his signet ring 'Graved a maxim true and wise, Which, if held before the eyes, Gave him counsel at a glance, Trains of camels through the sand Brought him gems from Samarcand; Fleets of galleys through the seas Brought him pearls to match with these. But he counted not his gain Treasures of the mine or main; "What is wealth?" the King would say; "Even this shall pass away." In the revels of his court Cried: "Oh, loving friends of mine! Fighting on a furious field, Towering in the public square, Twenty cubits in the air, Rose his statue, carved in stone. |