English

Though the day be dreary,
Even comes apace,
The ending of the race,
The sight of sweet love's face
So restful to the weary.

Though the day be burning,
Yet shall night succeed,
And darkness soft give heed
To us in utter need,
Responsive to our yearning.

When the day is over,
Comes the scent of sand
Touched by the wet sea's hand
To heal the burnt-up land,
And waft of cliff-top clover.

And brightness of thy face
O love, O woman tender,

If any man would win a crown to last,
First let his inmost spirit of love be pure, —
First let him life's high mountain airs endure,
And face the thunder, and the midnight blast.
When this world's fiery seas are safely past
There shall be pleasure and there shall be praise,
And fame perhaps, and garlands of green bays,
And recompence; but such flowers spring not fast.

Who would be first, must fight the fight most hard;
In labours and in sorrows must abound;
Smooth things and easy must his soul discard;

Art is a jealous mistress. Who will hold
My lady in his arms, must serve her long:
Yet must he follow her with footstep strong,
And woo her fickle heart with pleading bold.
If ever in fair arms he would enfold
The goddess, he must quit the noisy throng
And follow her the silent hills among, —
Marking far off her gleaming locks of gold.

A time shall come when by some lonely lake,
Some mountain-tarn, she shall look round at him:
And all the distant view shall seem to swim
In passionate tears as he doth fully take

Talk not to me of Italy!—Hast thou seen
The fern-draped vales of Devon? Hast thou felt
The sweetness of the morning through thee melt
Within the moist dense tangled woods that screen
Blue Derwentwater, stretching broad and green
Along the mountain-margins, belt on belt?
Hast thou through months of golden summer dwelt
Where white Penzance basks, sunlit and serene?—

Talk not to me of Italy!—In our clime
Wonders undreamed of I will show to thee:
Is not this black-tressed pine-forest sublime?

I.

“Many and many bright returns,”
 As runs the good old phrase,
Of this thy birthday, this that burns
 Starlike 'mid dimmer days.

II.

Just twenty-one! How strange it seems.
I who have outlived a thousand dreams,
 Can I make love to one
 Whose dreams are just begun?

III.

O girlish heart, thou art sublime
 In that thou comest straight
To this the shadowed land of time
 From morning's timeless gate.

IV.

Within thine eyes the morning's light

This very day long years ago
The autumn woods were sweet
With passage of thy feet,
Thrilling the wild gold wheat
And glades where dim flowers blow.

Eleven years this very day
I asked thee to be mine
And round thy brow did twine
Ferns, heather, and woodbine,
And many a woodland spray.

Eleven long long years!
Where hast thou been so long,
O lady of my song, —
For still the wild flowers throng
The woods, and still thine ears.

May hear the old love-strain

Because thou wast the first
To waken passion's thirst
When all the morning youthful air was sweet;
Because while skies were blue
And fern-fronds fresh with dew
Thine eyes were morning's eyes for me to meet,
Thy name first, last, in song-land I repeat.

Because the seas were fair
With breath of morning air, —
Because enchanted sunlight filled the bays;
Because in vale and dell
Young springlike petals fell
And dreams were sweet in many a woodland maze,

I give to thee the blessing of all flowers, —
The sweetness lingering on the summer breeze,
The music of all thunders and all seas,
The passionate brightness of all red-rose bowers,
The silver magic of love's moonlit hours,
The soft sense of the greenness of the leas,
And tender utterance of the buds of trees,
And tender melody of the springtide showers.

The blessing of the universe is thine, —
This I thy poet for a guerdon give;
Around thy perfect brows all flowers I twine;

The sweet green flowerful laughing summers coming
Again shall shine;
Again the June wind's subtle fingers strumming
Shall shake the pine;
Again the yellow-banded bee go humming
O'er clover and vine.

Again the long waves, wonderful in whiteness,
Shall storm the shore;
The yellow moon with the old weird shimmering brightness
Her rays forthpour;
Yea, some shall love with the old unchanged heart-lightness,
But we no more.

Weary the world seems; like a woman colder
Who soft words said

When the sweet twilight comes, my soul doth enter
A sweet place, hardly seen by shifting light,
Whereof one glorious white form is the centre,
As the clear moon is central orb of night,
I cease to live alone, sad facts forsake me;
I find a queenly gracious counterpart,—
To her with reverent pleasure I betake me,
Bringing the songful treasures of my heart.
I am no more alone, my lady brings me
Another self, a higher holier power:
The tender reappearing twilight flings me
A wave-washed shell towards the fragrant bower