I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said
"I love thee true!"

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild, wild eyes With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dream'd—ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried" La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake

And no birds sing.

John Keats

NIAMH

who is she, and what is she? A beauty born eternally

Of shimmering moonshine, sunset flame,
And rose-red heart of dawn;

None knows the secret ways she came
Whither she journeys on.

I follow her, I follow her

By haunted pools with dreams astir,
And over blue unwearied tides

Of shadow-waves, where sleep

Old loves, old hates, whose doom derides Vows we forgot to keep.

I send my cry, I send my cry
Adown the arches of the sky,
Along the pathway of the stars,
Through quiet and through stress;
I beat against the saffron bars
That guard her loveliness.

And low I hear, oh, low I hear,
Her cruel laughter, fluting clear,
I see far-off the drifted gold
Of wind-blown flying hair;

I stand without in dark and cold

And she is - Where? Where? Where?

Ethna Carbery

J

LA SOURCE ENCHANTÉE

''ERRAIS dans la montagne un jour de chaleur grande.

Une source s'offrit, claire, parmi les houx. Comme les chevaliers dont parle la legende Pour boire dans ma main je me mis à genoux. "Quelqu'une qui passait un troupeau dans la lande

Me crie, mais hélas! trop tard: "Malheur à vous!"

J'avais bu, sans savoir, l'eau de Broceliande,
Ma lèvre en a gardé l'impérissable goût,

Et je vais, depuis lors, indifférent aux choses
Qui font les hommes gais ou qui les font moroses.
La source fée en moi luit sans les arbres verts;
Je suis le prisonnier de son eau diaphane,
Et je ne sais plus rien de l'immense univers
Que le reflêt changeant des yeux de Viviane.
Anatole Le Braz

KUBLA KHAN

'N Xanadu did Kubla Khan

IN

A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But O! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated mid-way on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

DER FISCHER

DAS Wasser rauscht', das Wasser schwoll,

Ein Fischer sass daran,

Sah nach der Angel ruhevoll,

Kühl bis ans Herz hinan.

Und wie er sitzt und wie er lauscht,
Teilt sich die Flut empor;

Aus dem bewegten Wasser rauscht
Ein feuchtes Weib hervor.

Sie sang zu ihm, sie sprach zu ihm:
"Was lockst du meine Brut

Mit Menschenwitz und Menschenlist
Hinauf in Todesglut?

Ach wüsstest du, wie's Fischlein ist

So wohlig auf dem Grund,
Du stiegst herunter wie du bist,
Und würdest erst gesund.

"Labt sich die liebe Sonne nicht,
Der Mond sich nicht im Meer?
Kehrt wellenatmend ihr Gesicht
Nicht doppelt schöner her?