birth

ROSE-CHEEK'D Laura, come;
Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's
Silent music, either other
   Sweetly gracing.

   Lovely forms do flow
From concent divinely framed:
Heaven is music, and thy beauty's
   Birth is heavenly.

   These dull notes we sing
Discords need for helps to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
   Knows no discord;

   But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renew'd by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in them-
   selves eternal.

Blessed is the One who lifts the slow sun
above this morning's raw orange edge,
who moves the ewe to nudge her birth-
stunned lamb into the flock's heat, who
leads the hen to steer her keets as soon as
they can walk into the insect-
filled, high grass, guides the owl to tear fresh
pigeon into pieces small enough
to fill the owlet's gaping bill,
and prompts the rat to lick the pup
that's not her own and take it to her side,
directs the swan to trumpet,

Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.

The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.

Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery --
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.

After two sittings, now our Lady State
To end her picture does the third time wait.
But ere thou fall'st to work, first, Painter, see
If't ben't too slight grown or too hard for thee.
Canst thou paint without colors? Then 'tis right:
For so we too without a fleet can fight.
Or canst thou daub a signpost, and that ill?
'Twill suit our great debauch and little skill.
Or hast thou marked how antic masters limn
The aly-roof with snuff of candle dim,
Sketching in shady smoke prodigious tools?

LARA. [1]

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, [2]
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,
............Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
............'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights
unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
............Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
............There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
............In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,

O mother mine, Dau (Balram)forever teases me.
you never gave birth to me,
and I was bought in the market.
this is what he tells me
o mother mihne, Dau forever teases me.
fed up of his teasing ways,
I don't go out to play.
who is your mother?
and who is your father?
again and again he says.
Yasoda's fair, so also Nanda,
how come you're so dark?
Dau provokes, the gopas laugh,
and all have such a lark.
me, mother, you want to beat,
but Dau you never even scold,
seeing the anger on Mohan's face

Campos, ubi Troja fuit.
Virg.


Where Kensington, high o'er the neighbouring lands
Midst greens and sweets, a regal fabric, stands,
And sees each spring, luxuriant in her bowers,
A snow of blossoms, and a wild of flowers,
The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair
To gravel walks, and unpolluted air.
Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies,
They breathe in sun-shine, and see azure skies;
Each walk, with robes of various dyes bespread,
Seems from afar a moving tulip-bed,

'Keep white the strain!"
Oh! brothers mine, in bitter shame
Australia kneels and makes the prayer;
Wrench out the loathsome lusts and swear
To be men worthy of the name;
To hold your manhood with such price,
Such love of lineage and race,
That, when the nations give her place,
She shall go forth all purified.

"Keep white the strain!"
Oh, maiden of the sunny south
Slim maiden, trim and typical
Let not forbidden kisses fall
Upon thy sweet love-drenched mouth;
But rather teach the alien earth,

It may be through some foreign grace,
And unfamiliar charm of face;
It may be that across the foam
Which bore her from her childhood's home,
By some strange spell, my Katie brought,
Along with English creeds and thought --
Entangled in her golden hair --
Some English sunshine, warmth, and air!
I cannot tell -- but here to-day,
A thousand billowy leagues away
From that green isle whose twilight skies
No darker are than Katie's eyes,
She seems to me, go where she will,
An English girl in England still!