SONG FROM THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together;
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn,
Age like wintry weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare;

Youth is full of sport,

Age's breath is short;

Youth is nimble, Age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold,

Age is weak and cold;

Youth is wild, and Age is tame;

Age, I do abhor thee,

Youth, I do adore thee;

O my Love, my Love is young!

Age, I do defy thee

O sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay'st too long.

-William Shakespeare.

SONNET.

Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be,
And that my muse, to some ears not unsweet,
Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet
More apt than to a chamber melody,--
Now blessed you bear onward blessed me
To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet;

My muse and I must you of duty greet
With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully;

Be you still fair, honored by public heed;

By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot;

Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed;

And that you know I envy you no lot

Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss

Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may kiss.

-Sir Philip Sidney.

THE CROSS OF SNOW.

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face-the face of one long dead-Looks at me from the wall, where round its

head

The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.

Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines

Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing

scenes

And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

-Henry W. Longfellow.

VISION.

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet I know how the heather looks

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in Heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.

-Emily Dickinson.

THE SWANS OF WILTON.

O how the swans of Wilton

Twenty abreast did go,

Like country brides bound for the church,
Sails set and all aglow!

With pouting breast, in pure white dressed,
Soft gliding in a row.

Where through the weed's green fleeces,

The perch in brazen-coat,

Like golden shuttles mermaid's use,
Shot past my crimson float:

Where swinish carp were snoring loud
Around the anchored boat.

Adown the gentle river

The white swans bore in sail,

Their full soft feathers puffing out

Like canvas in the gale;

And all the kine and dappled deer

Stood watching in the vale.

The stately swans of Wilton

Strutted and puffed along,

Like canons in their full white gown,

Late for the even song,
Whom up the vale the peevish bell
In vain has chided long.

O how the Swans of Wilton

Bore down the radiant stream; As calm as holy hermits' lives,

Or a play-tired infant's dream; Like fairy beds of last year's snow, Did those radiant creatures seem.

- Unknown.

ODE TO AUTUMN.

Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves

run,

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel: to set budding more, And still more later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on the half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider press, with patient look

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music, too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gusts mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft,

Or sinking, as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from the garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

-John Keats.

COLUMBUS.

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the gates of Hercules:
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
For lo, the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm'rl, speak; what shall I say?"
"Why say, 'Sail on, sail on, and on.'"

"My men grow mutinous day by day;

My men grow ghastly wan and weak.” The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Adm'rl, say,

If we wight not but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day,
'Sail on, sail on, sail on, and on.'"'

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know

Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,

For God from these dread seas is gone; Now speak, brave Adm'rl; speak and say." He said: "Sail on, sail on, and on."

They sailed. They sailed. Then spoke the mate: "This mad sea shows its teeth tonight.

He curls his lip, he lies in wait,

With lifted teeth as if to bite;

Brave Adm'rl, say but one good word.
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt as a leaping sword:

"Sail on, sail on, sail on, and on."

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,

And peered through darkness. Oh, the night Of all dark nights. And then a speck

A light: a light: a light: a light:

It grew: a starlit flag unfurled:

It grew to be time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its greatest lesson, "On and on."

-Joaquin Miller.