LITMIR.BIZ

      A picture-frame for you to fill,

         A paltry setting for your face,

      A thing that has no worth until

         You lend it something of your grace

      I send (unhappy I that sing

         Laid by awhile upon the shelf)

      Because I would not send a thing

         Less charming than you are yourself.

      And happier than I, alas!

         (Dumb thing, I envy its delight)

      ’Twill wish you well, the looking-glass,

         And look you in the face to-night.

      A lover of the moorland bare

      And honest country winds, you were;

      The silver-skimming rain you took;

      And loved the floodings of the brook,

      Dew, frost and mountains, fire and seas,

      Tumultuary silences,

      Winds that in darkness fifed a tune,

      And the high-riding, virgin moon.

      And as the berry, pale and sharp,

      Springs on some ditch’s counterscarp

      In our ungenial, native north —

      You put your frosted wildings forth,

      And on the heath, afar from man,

      A strong and bitter virgin ran.

      The berry ripened keeps the rude

      And racy flavour of the wood.

      And you that loved the empty plain

      All redolent of wind and rain,

      Around you still the curlew sings —

      The freshness of the weather clings —

      The maiden jewels of the rain

      Sit in your dabbled locks again.

      The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears,

      The deeds of heroes and the crimes of kings

      Dispart us; and the river of events

      Has, for an age of years, to east and west

      More widely borne our cradles.  Thou to me

      Art foreign, as when seamen at the dawn

      Descry a land far off and know not which.

      So I approach uncertain; so I cruise

      Round thy mysterious islet, and behold

      Surf and great mountains and loud river-bars,

      And from the shore hear inland voices call.

      Strange is the seaman’s heart; he hopes, he fears;

      Draws closer and sweeps wider from that coast;

      Last, his rent sail refits, and to the deep

      His shattered prow uncomforted puts back.

      Yet as he goes he ponders at the helm

      Of that bright island; where he feared to touch,

      His spirit readventures; and for years,

      Where by his wife he slumbers safe at home,

      Thoughts of that land revisit him; he sees

      The eternal mountains beckon, and awakes

      Yearning for that far home that might have been.

      Youth now flees on feathered foot

      Faint and fainter sounds the flute,

      Rarer songs of gods; and still

      Somewhere on the sunny hill,

      Or along the winding stream,

      Through the willows, flits a dream;

      Flits but shows a smiling face,

      Flees but with so quaint a grace,

      None can choose to stay at home,

      All must follow, all must roam.

      This is unborn beauty: she

      Now in air floats high and free,

      Takes the sun and breaks the blue; —

      Late with stooping pinion flew

      Raking hedgerow trees, and wet

      Her wing in silver streams, and set

      Shining foot on temple roof:

      Now again she flies aloof,

      Coasting mountain clouds and kiss’t

      By the evening’s amethyst.

      In wet wood and miry lane,

      Still we pant and pound in vain;

      Still with leaden foot we chase

      Waning pinion, fainting face;

      Still with gray hair we stumble on,

      Till, behold, the vision gone!

      Where hath fleeting beauty led?

      To the doorway of the dead.

      Life is over, life was gay:

      We have come the primrose way.

      Even in the bluest noonday of July,

      There could not run the smallest breath of wind

      But all the quarter sounded like a wood;

      And in the chequered silence and above

      The hum of city cabs that sought the Bois,

      Suburban ashes shivered into song.

      A patter and a chatter and a chirp

      And

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