Part 2 — FIFTH YEAR

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. —Alfred Lord Tennyson.

I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever. I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles. With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever. I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling, And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel, And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever. I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows. I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly bars; I loiter round my cresses; And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go. But I go on forever. —Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close: Bless us then with wishèd sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart And thy crystal-shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Thou that mak'st a day of night, Goddess excellently bright! —Ben Jonson.

A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast And fills the white and rustling sail And bends the gallant mast; And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While like the eagle free Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old England on the lee. O for a soft and gentle wind! I heard a fair one cry; But give to me the snoring breeze And white waves heaving high; And white waves heaving high, my lads, The good ship tight and free:— The world of waters is our home, And merry men are we. There's tempest in yon hornèd moon, And lightning in yon cloud; But hark the music, mariners! The wind is piping loud; The wind is piping loud, my boys, The lightning flashes free— While the hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea. —Allan Cunningham.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace; Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below The foaming wake far widening as we go. On stormy nights when wild north-westers rave, How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave! The dripping sailor on the reeling mast Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. —Arthur Hugh Clough.

Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat— Come hither, come hither, come hither! Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. Who doth ambition shun And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats And pleased with what he gets— Come hither, come hither, come hither! Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. —William Shakespeare.

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon: As yet the early-rising Sun Has not attain'd his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having pray'd together, we Will go with you along. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a Spring; As quick a growth to meet decay As you, or anything. We die, As your hours do, and dry Away Like to the Summer's rain; Or as the pearls of Morning's dew Ne'er to be found again. —Robert Herrick.

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying; And the year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, Months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array,— Follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling, For the year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling. Come, Months, come away; Put on white, black, and gray; Let your light sisters play; Ye, follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. —Percy Bysshe Shelley.

From Oberon, in fairy land, The king of ghosts and shadows there, Mad Robin I, at his command, Am sent to view the night-sports here. What revel rout Is kept about, In every corner where I go, I will o'ersee, And merry be, And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho! More swift than lightning can I fly About this airy welkin soon, And, in a minute's space, descry Each thing that's done below the moon. There's not a hag Or ghost shall wag, Or cry 'ware goblins, where I go; But, Robin, I Their feast will spy, And send them home with ho, ho, ho! Whene'er such wanderers I meet, As from their night-sports they trudge home, With counterfeiting voice I greet, And call them on with me to roam; Through woods, through lakes, Through bogs, through brakes, Or else, unseen, with them I go, All in the nick To play some trick, And frolic it, with ho, ho, ho! Sometimes I meet them like a man, Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound; And to a horse I turn me can, To trip and trot about them round. But if to ride, My back they stride, More swift than wind away I go, O'er hedge and lands. Through pools and ponds, I hurry, laughing, ho, ho, ho! By wells and rills, in meadows green, We nightly dance our heyday guise; And to our fairy King and Queen, We chant our moonlight minstrelsies. When larks 'gin sing, Away we fling; And babes new born steal as we go; And elf in bed, We leave instead, And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho! From hag-bred Merlin's time have I Thus nightly revell'd to and fro; And for my pranks men call me by The name of Robin Good-fellow. Fiends, ghosts, and sprites, Who haunt the nights, The hags and goblins do me know; And beldames old So valé, valé! ho, ho, ho! —Unknown.

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! Rescue my castle before the hot day Brightens to blue from its silvery gray, Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say; Many's the friend there, will listen and pray "God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay— Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array, Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay, Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest, and gay, Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay! I've better counsellors; what counsel they? Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" —Robert Browning.