Volume 1 — THE FLOWER OF THE RUINS
Reading edition
Take thy lute and sing By the ruined castle walls, Where the torrent-foam falls, And long weeds wave: Take thy lute and sing, O’er the grey ancestral grave! Daughter of a King, Tune thy string.
Sing of happy hours, In the roar of rushing time; Till all the echoes chime To the days gone by; Sing of passing hours To the ever-present sky;— Weep—and let the showers Wake thy flowers.
Sing of glories gone:— No more the blazoned fold From the banner is unrolled; The gold sun is set. Sing his glory gone, For thy voice may charm him yet; Daughter of the dawn, He is gone!
Pour forth all thy grief! Passionately sweep the chords, Wed them quivering to thy words; Wild words of wail! Shed thy withered grief— But hold not Autumn to thy bale; The eddy of the leaf Must be brief!
Sing up to the night: Hard it is for streaming tears To read the calmness of the spheres; Coldly they shine; Sing up to their light; They have views thou may’st divine— Gain prophetic sight From their light!
On the windy hills Lo, the little harebell leans On the spire-grass that it queens, With bonnet blue; Trusting love instils Love and subject reverence true; Learn what love instils On the hills!
By the bare wayside Placid snowdrops hang their cheeks, Softly touch’d with pale green streaks, Soon, soon, to die; On the clothed hedgeside Bands of rosy beauties vie, In their prophesied Summer pride.
From the snowdrop learn; Not in her pale life lives she, But in her blushing prophecy. Thus be thy hopes, Living but to yearn Upwards to the hidden scopes;— Even within the urn Let them burn!
Heroes of thy race— Warriors with golden crowns, Ghostly shapes with marbled frowns Stare thee to stone; Matrons of thy race Pass before thee making moan; Full of solemn grace Is their pace.
Piteous their despair! Piteous their looks forlorn! Terrible their ghostly scorn! Still hold thou fast;— Heed not their despair!— Thou art thy future, not thy past; Let them glance and glare Thro’ the air.
Thou the ruin’s bud, Be not that moist rich-smelling weed With its arras-sembled brede, And ruin-haunting stalk; Thou the ruin’s bud, Be still the rose that lights the walk, Mix thy fragrant blood With the flood!