Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 10 So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; The silver answer rang,-" Not Death, but Love." VI. Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Of individual life, I shall command Without the sense of that which I forboreThy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine 10 With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two. XXXV. If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, 5 When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, 10 To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove; For grief indeed is love and grief beside. XLIII. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 10 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,-I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Charles kingsley 1819-1875 SONG (From The Saint's Tragedy, 1848) Oh! that we two were Maying Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; In the shade of the whispering trees. 5 Oh! that we two sat dreaming On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down Over river and mead and town. Oh! that we two lay sleeping 10 In our nest in the churchyard sod, With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, 5 THE THREE FISHERS (1851) Three fishers went sailing away to the West, Each thought on the woman who loved him the And the children stood watching them out of the town, For men must work, and women must weep, Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, 10 They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, 15 Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands For those who will never come home to the town; 20 For men must work, and women must weep, THE SANDS OF DEE (From Alton Locke, 1849) "O Mary, go and call the cattle home And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home 5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam And all alone went she. 10 15 20 The western tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see. The rolling mist came down and hid the land: "Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair- A drownèd maiden's hair Above the nets at sea? Was never salmon yet that shone so fair They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee. CLEAR AND COOL (Song from The Water Babies, 1863) Clear and cool, clear and cool, By shining shingle, and foaming wear; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. Dank and foul, dank and foul, 10 By the smoky town in its murky cowl; Foul and dank, foul and dank, 15 By wharf and sewer and slimy bank; Who dare sport with the sin-defiled? Strong and free, strong and free; 20 Cleansing my streams as I hurry along 25 Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. Undefiled, for the undefiled; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. |