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O That 't Were Possible

For a tumult shakes the city,
And I wake, my dream is filed;
In the shuddering dawn, behold,
Without knowledge, without pity,
By the curtains of my bed
That abiding phantom cold!

Get thee hence, nor come again,
Mix not memory with doubt,
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
'T is the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.

Then I rise, the eave-drops fall,
And the yellow vapors choke
The great city sounding wide;
The day comes, a dull red ball
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
On the misty river-tide.

Thro' the hubbub of the market
I steal, a wasted frame;

It crosses here, it crosses there.

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud,
The shadow still the same:

And on my heavy eyelids

My anguish hangs like shame.

Alas for her that met me,

That heard me softly call,

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Came glimmering thro' the laurels

At the quiet evenfall,

In the garden by the turrets

Of the old manorial hall!

Would the happy spirit descend
From the realms of light and song,
In the chamber or the street,
As she looks among the blest,
Should I fear to greet my friend
Or to say, "Forgive the wrong,"
Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet,
To the regions of thy rest"?

But the broad light glares and beats,
And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be;

And I loathe the squares and streets,
And the faces that one meets,

Hearts with no love for me:

Always I long to creep

Into some still cavern deep,

There to weep, and weep, and weep

My whole soul out to thee.

1855.

LONGING

Lord Tennyson.

COME to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!

For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

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888

Meeting at Night

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth;
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say: My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!

For then the night will more than pay 1 The hopeless longing of the day.

1852.

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Matthew Arnold.

I

MEETING AT NIGHT

THE gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

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A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

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II

PARTING AT MORNING

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

1845.

Robert Browning.

MISCONCEPTIONS

THIS is a spray the Bird clung to,
Making it blossom with pleasure,
Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,

Fit for her nest and her treasure.

Oh, what a hope beyond measure

Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung

to,

So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!

This is a heart the Queen leant on,
Thrilled in a minute erratic.

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A Dead Rose

Ere the true bosom she bent on,

Meet for love's regal dalmatic.

Oh, what a fancy ecstatic

Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went onLove to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on! 14 Robert Browning.

1855.

A DEAD ROSE

O ROSE, who dares to name thee?

No longer roseate now, nor soft nor sweet, But pale and hard and dry as stubble wheat,Kept seven years in a drawer, thy title shames thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee

Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odour up the lane to last all day,If breathing now, unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee,

And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn
Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to

burn,

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If shining now, with not a hue would light thee. 12

The dew that used to wet thee,

And, white first, grow incarnadined because
It lay upon thee where the crimson was,

If dropping now, would darken where it met

thee.

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