CYTHNA. SHE moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew, Like the bright shade of some immortal dream Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream. As mine own shadow was this child to me, A second self, far dearer and more fair, All those steep paths which languor and despair But which I trod alone, nor, till bereft Of friends, and overcome by lonely care, Knew I what solace for that loss was left, Though by a bitter wound my trusting heart was cleft. Once she was dear, now she was all I had To love in human life, this playmate sweet, Wandered with mine, where earth and ocean meet The unreposing billows ever beat. Through forests wide and old, and lowing dells, Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells. And warm and light I felt her clasping hand, It had no waste, but some memorial lent And soon I could not have refused her-thus Of noon beside the sea had made a lair And I kept watch over her slumbers there, While, as the shifting visions over her swept, Amid her innocent rest by turns she smiled and wept. SHELLEY. THE COOt was swimming in the reedy pond The moping heron, motionless and stiff, To guard the water-lily. HOOD. AUTUMN. SEASON 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 For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers; And sometimes 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? Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; KEATS. |