Who thinks of June's first rose to-day?
Only some child, perhaps, with shining eyes and rough bright hair will reach it down
In a green sunny lane, to us almost as far away
As are the fearless stars from these veiled lamps of town.
What's little June to a great broken world with eyes gone dim
From too much looking on the face of grief, the face of dread?
Or what's the broken world to June and him
Of the small eager hand, the shining eyes, the rough bright head?

Above rose the Coniston Fells
In their own shape and colour,
Not man's hills,
But all for themselves—
The sky, and the clouds,
And a few wild creatures.

I LOVE thee that thou dost inspire
My ice-bound heart with quickening fire,
And makest me forget,
One silver moment, that I'm old,
When warms thy breath my lips, from cold
Indifference to regret.

As in gray autumn's dreary days
Their pallid cheeks the asters raise,
To catch the sun's stray kiss,
So, ere the Arctic night sets in,
Thy radiance shall my last thread spin
With rapture's golden bliss.

O thrilling touch, O glowing eyes,
Whose beams, like stars in wintry skies,
Shine harmless on the snow!
Harmless as when, in tempest dark,

There have been pictures that were reckoned fair
In ancient times by cunning painters wrought,
And far across the tides of ocean brought
To hang at last like jewels old and rare
In stately halls; but none that would compare
To some one woman, by the Graces taught,
With roses at her bosom, perfume-fraught
And motes of golden sunlight in her hair.

Time picks the crumbling canvas into shreds
Till, dust at length it sinks in the abyss,
And with the winds in errant circle blows;
But ere Fate comes to snip the tightened threads

For these of old the trader
Unpearled the Indian seas,
The nations of the nadir
Were diamondless for these;

A people prone and haggard
Beheld their lightnings hurled:
All round, like Sinai, staggered
The sceptre-shaken world.

But now their coins are tarnished,
Their towers decayed away,
Their kingdom swept and garnished
For haler kings than they;

Their arms the rust hath eaten,
Their statutes none regard:
Arabia shall not sweeten
Their dust, with all her nard.

They cease from long vexation,

Fight not with God, nor thwart his wiser will,
(Contending serves to aggravate an ill,)
But bravely bear those ills he's pleas'd to send;
Why should we blame the laws we cannot mend?

Old minster, when my years were few,
And life seemed endless to the boy;
Clear yet and vivid is the joy
With which I gazed and thought on you.

Thin shaft and flower-wrought capital,
High-springing arch, and blazoned pane,
Quaint gurgoyles stretching heads profane,
And stately throne and carven stall.

The long nave lost in vaporous gray,
The mailed recumbent forms which wait,
In mockery of earthly state,
The coming of the dreadful day.

The haunted aisles, the gathering gloom,
By some stray shaft of eve made fair:

Not on the river plains
Wilt thou breathe loving air,
O mountain spirit fine!
Here the calm soul maintains
Calm: but no joy like thine,
On hill-tops bleak and bare,
Whose breath is fierce and rare.

Were beauty all thy need,
Here were an haunt for thee.
The broad laborious weald,
An eye's delight indeed,
Spreads from rich field to field:
And full streams wander free
Under the alder tree.

Throw thee upon the grass,
The daisied grass, and gaze
Far to the warm blue mist:
Feel, how the soft hours pass
Over, before they wist,

Walk softly through the moonlight,
Softly, lest the sound
Startle the silver on your ankle
And strew it ash-like on the ground.

If you have burning in you
A tinge of thought more bright
Than is the moonlight's sulphur color,
Do not walk tonight.

They walk best in moonlight
Who borrow for their own
The passion of the moon to keep them
Impersonal as stone.

They who walk in moonlight
Should be so drunk with death
They pour themselves out in libation,
Breath on radiant breath.

Lady, for the love of God,
Have some pity upon me!
See my eyes, a river-flood
Day and night, oh, see!
Brothers, cousins, uncles, all,
Have I lost for thee;
If thou dost not me recall,