To which an answer peal'd from that high land, But in a tongue no man could understand; THE SKIPPING-ROPE. SURE never yet was Antelope Could skip so lightly by. Stand off, or else my skipping-rope Will hit you in the eye. How lightly whirls the skipping-rope ! How fairy-like you fly ! Go, get you gone, you muse and mope I hate that silly sigh. Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope, Or tell me how to die. There, take it, take my skipping-rope, And hang yourself thereby. Move eastward, happy earth, and leave Yon orange sunset waning slow. From fringes of the faded eve, O, happy planet, eastward go; Till over thy dark shoulder glow To glass herself in dewy eyes That watch me from the glen below. Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne, Dip forward under starry light, And move me to my marriage-morn, And round again to happy night. BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. THE POET'S SONG. THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose, He pass'd by the town, and out of the street; A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat, And he sat him down in a lonely place, And chanted a melody loud and sweet, That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, And the lark drop down at his feet. The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, The snake slipt under a spray, The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, And stared, with his foot on the prey, |