25
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems 30
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain 35
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

PHILOMELA deg.

Hark! ah, the nightingale--
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark!--what pain deg.! deg.4

O wanderer from a Grecian shore, deg. deg.5
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain deg.-- deg.8
Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn 10
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm? 15

Dost thou to-night behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild deg.? deg.18
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes 20
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame deg.? deg.21
Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
Poor fugitive, the feathery change
Once more, and once more seem to make resound 25
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, deg. and the high Cephissian vale deg.? deg.27
Listen, Eugenia--
How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves deg.! deg.29
Again--thou hearest? 30
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain deg.! deg.32

HUMAN LIFE

What mortal, when he saw,
Life's voyage done, his heavenly Friend,
Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:
"I have kept uninfringed my nature's law deg.; deg.4
The inly-written chart deg. thou gavest me,