There's not a maiden in your hall, "Our lady's old and feeble now," They'll say: "she once was fresh and fair, The lover lies in silent earth, No kindly mate the lady cheers; She sits beside a lonely hearth, With threescore and ten years!" Ah! dreary thoughts and dreams are those, While yet the poet's bosom glows, While yet the dame is peerless fair! Sweet lady mine! while yet 'tis time Requite my passion and my truth, And gather in their blushing prime The roses of your youth! William Makepeace Thackeray [1811-1863] "WHEN YOU ARE OLD" WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, Love in a Life And bending down beside the glowing bars SONG From "Pippa Passes " YOU'LL love me yet!-and I can tarry I plant a heartfull now: some seed And yield-what you'll not pluck indeed, You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet: Your look?-that pays a thousand pains. What's death? You'll love me yet! 615 Robert Browning [1812-1889] ROOM after room, LOVE IN A LIFE I hunt the house through We inhabit together. Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her- Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume! As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew: Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather. Yet the day wears, And door succeeds door; I try the fresh fortune Range the wide house from the wing to the center. Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter. Spend my whole day in the quest,-who cares? But 'tis twilight, you see,-with such suites to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune! Robert Browning [1812-1889] LIFE IN A LOVE ESCAPE me? Never Beloved! While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us both, It seems too much like a fate, indeed! To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, So the chase takes up one's life, that's all. While, look but once from your farthest bound At me so deep in the dust and dark, No sooner the old hope drops to ground Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark, Ever Removed! Robert Browning (1812-1880] THE WELCOME COME in the evening, or come in the morning; Come when you're looked for, or come without warning: Red is my check that they told me was blighted; Urania The green of the trees looks far greener than ever, 617 I'll pull you sweet flowers, to wear if you choose them,- We'll look through the trees at the cliff and the eyric; So come in the evening, or come in the morning; Thomas Osborne Davis [1814-1845] URANIA She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh, Eagerly once her gracious ken But light the serious visage grew— She looked, and smiled, and saw them through. Our petty souls, our strutting wits, Yet show her once, ye heavenly Powers, His eyes be like the starry lights; And she to him will reach her hand, And know her friend, and weep for glee, Then will she weep-with smiles, till then Their pure, unwavering, deep disdain. Matthew Arnold [1822-1888) THREE SHADOWS I LOOKED and saw your eyes in the shadow of your hair, As a traveler sces the stream in the shadow of the wood;— And I said, “ My faint heart sighs, ah me! to linger there, To drink deep and to dream in that sweet solitude." I looked and saw your heart in the shadow of your eyes, Whose want must make life cold and Heaven a hollow dream?" |