Chapter XVI

Come away Sorrow, Sorrow come away—
Let us go sit in some cool, shadowy place;
There shall you sing and hush me all the day,
While I will dream about my lover’s face.

Hush me, O Sorrow, like a babe to sleep,
Then close the lids above mine eyes that weep;
Rock me, O Sorrow, like a babe in pain,
Nor, when I slumber, wake me up again.

_Arnold Von Winkelried._

The great things that I love I cannot do,
The little things I do I cannot love!
Far from the goal I wander, and above
The voice is mute of Him I never knew.

Nothing is sweet, I find, and nothing true,
And none of all my dreams is dear enough—
And only one is worth the dreaming of;
If I could give my life and die for you!

O easy death, surrounded with alarms,
Blue ranks of serried spears that swerve and start
Where heroes clench their eyes and catch their breath!
To clasp a score of lances in my arms
And turn them from your front deep in my heart
And die, and do you service in my death!

_Night._

O night eternal and blue,
Holy and soft above,
You seem to lay on my forehead
The touch of an infinite love—

The touch of a love that never
Will understand me aright—
Why should you touch me and love me,
O tender and delicate night?

O night, look in with your stars
On the wintry face of despair,
And your stars will eddy and shrivel
As leaves in a gust of the air!

_Honour._

One star at least, one star still breaks the night,
Sinister, pallid, as the peace of death;
And through the rain and wind a little light
Streams fitfully across the windy heath.

All round me from the towering seas beneath
Atlantic billows dash their storms of white;
Among the rocks the angry waters seethe;—
In heaven my star, my star is out of sight!

Yet shine again O white Divinity,
And wheresoe’er thou leadest I will go—
What, down? Over the cliff’s edge?
Forth and down?

There shines the path I follow! yet I know
The infamous blind creatures of the sea
Swim dimly with wide faces where I drown.

_Semitones._

I.

Give me a rose not merely sweet and fresh,
Not only red and bright,
But caught about in such a thorny mesh
As rankles in delight.

Smile on me, Sweet; but look not only kind:
The smile that most endears
Trembles on pallid lips from eyes half-blind
With brine of bitter tears.

II.

Ah, could I clasp thee in mine arms,
And thou not feel me there,
Asleep and free from vain alarms,
Asleep and unaware!

Ah, could I kiss thy pallid cheek,
And thou not know me nigh;
Asleep at last, and very meek,
Who wert as proud as I.