1845. The moon and its broken reflection And its shadows shall appear, As the symbol of love in heaven, 60 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan, He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, Ere he brought it out of the river. High on the shore sat the great god Pan, And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can, He cut it short, did the great god Pan, (How tall it stood in the river!) Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, 6 12 18 The Arrow and the Song Steadily from the outside ring, In holes, as he sat by the river. "This is the way," laugh'd the great god Pan (Laugh'd while he sat by the river), "The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed." Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,- Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 24 30 36 42 THE ARROW AND THE SONG I SHOT an arrow into the air, 1845. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; Long, long afterward, in an oak 8 12 "THE WORLD'S GREAT AGE BEGINS ANEW" From Hellas THE world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. A brighter Hellas rears its mountains A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 6 12 "The World's Great Age Begins Anew" A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, Although a subtler Sphinx renew Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, The splendour of its prime; And leave, if naught so bright may live, Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, Oh, cease! must hate and death return? 18 24 30 36 1822. Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last! 42 Percy Bysshe Shelley. "HARP OF THE NORTH, FARE WELL!" From The Lady of the Lake HARP of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark, On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending. Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending, And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending, With distant echo from the fold and lea, And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee. Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp! And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an idle lay. Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, Through secret woes the world has never known, 9 |