Part I: The Window | Part II: Time Passes | Part III: The Lighthouse
Part
II: Time Passes
Part
III: The Lighthouse
The Invitation by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Best
and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair
Day,
Which, like thee to those
in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
5
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn
Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon
Morn
To hoar February born.
10
Bending from heaven, in azure
mirth,
It kiss'd the forehead of
the Earth;
And smiled upon the silent
sea;
And bade the frozen streams
be free;
And waked to music all their
fountains; 15
And breathed upon the frozen
mountains;
And like a prophetess of May
Strew'd flowers upon the barren
way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest,
dear. 20
Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs—
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not
find 25
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's
art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my
door
For each accustom'd visitor:—
30
'I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour
yields.
Reflection, you may come to-morrow;
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.
You with the unpaid bill,
Despair,— 35
You, tiresome verse-reciter,
Care,—
I will pay you in the grave,—
Death will listen to your
stave.
Expectation too, be off!
To-day is for itself enough.
40
Hope, in pity mock not Woe
With smiles, nor follow where
I go;
Long having lived on your
sweet food,
At length I find one moment's
good
After long pain: with all
your love, 45
This you never told me of.'
Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the
plains;
And the pools where winter
rains 50
Image all their roof of leaves;
Where the pine its garland
weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss
the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures
be, 55
And the sandhills of the sea;
Where the melting hoar-frost
wets
The daisy-star that never
sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets
Which yet join not scent to
hue, 60
Crown the pale year weak and
new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and
blind,
And the blue noon is over
us,
And the multitudinous
65
Billows murmur at our feet
Where the earth and ocean
meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.
“Sirens’
Song” by William Browne
STEER, hither steer your
wingàed pines,
All beaten mariners!
Here lie Love’s undiscover’d
mines,
A prey to passengers—
Perfumes far sweeter than
the best
Which make the Phoenix’
urn and nest.
Fear not your ships,
Nor any to oppose you save
our lips;
But come on shore,
Where no joy dies till
Love hath gotten more.
For swelling waves our
panting breasts,
Where never storms arise,
Exchange, and be awhile
our guests:
For stars gaze on our eyes.
The compass Love shall
hourly sing,
And as he goes about the
ring,
We will not miss
To tell each point he nameth
with a kiss.
—Then come on shore,
Where no joy dies till
Love hath gotten more.
Obscurest night involved the
sky,
Th’ Atlantic billows roared,
When such a destined wretch
as I,
Washed headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all
bereft,
His floating home for ever
left.
No braver chief could Albion
boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's
coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He loved them both, but both
in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.
Not long beneath the whelming
brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength
decline,
Or courage die away;
But waged with death a lasting
strife,
Supported by despair of life.
He shouted: nor his friends
had failed
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevailed,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate
behind,
And scudded still before the
wind.
Some succour yet they could
afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated
cord,
Delayed not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship,
nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should
visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seemed, could
he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such
a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to
die
Deserted, and his friends
so nigh.
He long survives, who lives
an hour
In ocean, self-upheld
And so long he, with unspent
pow’r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried-"Adieu!"
At length, his transient respite
past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in every
blast,
Could catch the sound no more
.
For then, by toil subdued,
he drank
The stifling wave, and then
he sank.
No poet wept him: but the
page
Of narrative sincere,
That tells his name, his worth,
his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear :
And tears by bards or heroes
shed
Alike immortalize the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or
dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights
to trace
Its 'semblance in another's
case.
No voice divine the storm
allayed,
No light propitious shone,
When, snatched from all effectual
aid,
We perished,
each alone :
But
I beneath a rougher sea,
And
whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.
Come out and climb the Garden
path
Luriana, Lurilee.
The China rose is all abloom
And buzzing with the yellow
bee.
We'll swing you on the cedar
bough,
Luriana, Lurilee.
I wonder if it seems to you,
Luriana, Lurilee,
That all the lives we ever
lived
And all the lives to be,
are full of trees and changing
leaves,
Luriana, Lurilee.
How long it seems since you
and I,
Luriana, Lurilee,
Roamed in the forest where
our kind
Had just begun to be,
And laughed and chattered
in the flowers,
Luriana, Lurilee.
How long since you and I went
out,
Luriana,Lurilee,
To see the Kings go riding
by
Over lawn and daisy lea,
With their palm leaves and
cedar sheaves,
Luriana, Lurilee.
Swing, swing, swing on a bough,
Luriana, Lurilee,
Till you sleep in a humble
heap
Or under a gloomy churchyard
tree,
And then fly back to swing
on a bough,
Luriana, Lurilee.
From you have I been absent
in the spring,
When proud-pied April,
dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth
in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed
and leapt with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds,
nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in
odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's
story tell,
Or from their proud lap
pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the
lily's white,
Nor
praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but
figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern
of all those.
Yet
seemed it winter still, and you away,
As
with your shadow I with these did play.