TO THE NIGHTINGALE. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk : Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a breaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan, Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: And haply the Queen-moon is on her throne, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves, Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Still would'st thou sing, and I have ears in vain- Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music :-Do I wake or sleep!` ROBIN HOOD, No! those days are gone away, No, the bugle sounds no more, ; Past the heath and up the hill On the fairest time of June Down beside the pasture Trent ; Gone, the ; merry morris din Gone, the song of Gamelyn; Gone, the tough-belted outlaw Idling in the "grenè shaw;" All are gone away and past! And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his turfed grave, And if Marian should have Once again her forest days, She would weep, and he would craze : He would swear, for all his oaks, Fallen beneath the dockyard strokes, Have rotted on the briny seas; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her-Strange! that honey Can't be got without hard money! So it is yet let us sing, Honour to the old bow-string! Honour to the woods unshorn! And to all the Sherwood-clan ! |