Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

But covet not the abode; O do not sigh

As many do, repining while they look;
Intruders who would tear from Nature's book

This precious leaf with harsh impiety:

-Think what the home must be if it were thine,

Even thine, though few thy wants!-Roof, window, door, The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,

The roses to the porch which they entwine:
Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day
On which it should be touch'd would melt away!

412

TO SLEEP

A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;-

I've thought of all by turns, and still I lie
Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first utter'd from my orchard trees,
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.

Even thus last night, and two nights more I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:

Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blesséd barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

413

THE SONNET

I

NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;

And students with their pensive citadels;

414

Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,

In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

II

SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key

Shakespeare unlock'd his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens sooth'd an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,

It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES
[1762-1850]

DOVER CLIFFS

ON these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uplift their shadowy heads, and at their feet
Scarce hear the surge that has for ages beat,
Sure many a lonely wanderer has stood;
And while the distant murmur met his ear,
And o'er the distant billows the still eve

Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave

To-morrow; of the friends he loved most dear;
Of. social scenes from which he wept to part.
But if, like me, he knew how fruitless all
The thoughts that would full fain the past recall;
Soon would he quell the risings of his heart,
And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide,
The world his country, and his God his guide.

415

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
[1772-1834]

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

IN SEVEN PARTS

ARGUMENT.-How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country. [1798.]

PART I

IT is an ancient Mariner,

An ancient

Mariner

meeteth

three Gallants bidden to a wedding-feast, and detaineth one

And he stoppeth one of three.

[ocr errors]

By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

[ocr errors]

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.

"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"

The Wedding. Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

Guest is spellbound by the

eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

"The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

"Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon-"

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

"And now the Storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

"With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe,

The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the line

The WeddingGuest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his tale

The ship driven by a storm toward the south pole

The land of ice, and of

fearful sounds

where no liv

ing thing was to be seen

Till a great
sea-bird, called
the Albatross,

came through
the snow-fog,

and was received with great joy and hospitality

And lo! the
Albatross

proveth a bird
of good omen,

and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

"And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-
The ice was all between.

"The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

"It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

66

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

"In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

and floating ice It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moon-shine."

« AnteriorContinuar »