The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail; 55 But o'er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail.

60

I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

A maiden knight-to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.

65 I muse on joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,

70

Whose odours haunt my dreams;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,

This mortal armour that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls

75 A rolling organ-harmony

80

Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
‘O just and faithful knight of God!
Ride on the prize is near.'

So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide
Until I find the holy Grail.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

(From the same)

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

5 O well for the fisherman's boy,

10

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! 15 But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

TEARS, IDLE TEARS

(Song from The Princess, edition 1850)

'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 5 And thinking of the days that are no more.

'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld,

Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge; 10 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

'Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 15 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

'Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 20 O Death in Life, the days that are no more.'

BUGLE SONG

(From the same)

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 5 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

10

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:

15

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

IN MEMORIAM

(From In Memoriam, 1850)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

5 Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

10

15

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, 20 And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow

25 Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,

30

35

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me;

What seem'd my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
40 I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;

Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.

MAUD

(From Maud, 1855)

XVIII.

I.

I have led her home, my love, my only friend.
There is none like her, none.

And never yet so warmly ran my blood
And sweetly, on and on

5 Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good.