ALL THINGS WILL DIE.

CLEARLY the blue river chimes in its

flowing

Under my eye;

Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing

Over the sky.

One after another the white clouds are

fleeting;

Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating

Full merrily;

Yet all things must die.

The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
'The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat ;
For all things must die.

All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
Oh! vanity!

Death waits at the door.

See our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call'd-we must go.
Laid low, very low,

In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
Oh! misery!

Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,

The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;

Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.

Nine times goes the passing bell: Ye merry souls, farewell.

The old earth

Had a birth,

As all men know,
Long ago.

And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,

And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro' eternity.

All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.

THE KRAKEN.

3

BELOW the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth faintest sunlights
flee

About his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering

green.

There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

SONG.

THE winds, as at their hour of birth,
Leaning upon the ridged sea,
Breathed low around the rolling earth

With mellow preludes, 'We are free.'

'Mariana in the moated grange.'
Measure for Measure.

WITH blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all :
The rusted nails fell from the knots

That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, 'My life is dreary,

He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

About a stone-cast from the wall

A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small,

The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarled bark : For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray.

She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

Thro' light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances, sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy forms of flitting change.

Then in madness and in bliss,
If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously,
Again thou blushest angerly;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.

II.

Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles: but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?

Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.

Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,

Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.

All the mystery is thine ;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Ever varying Madeline.

SONG-THE OWL.

I.

WHEN cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

II.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the
thatch

Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;

Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.