Another name was on the door: I linger'd; all within was noise Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys That crash'd the glass and beat the floor; Where once we held debate, a band Of youthful friends, on mind and art, And labour, and the changing mart, And all the framework of the land; When one would aim an arrow fair, But send it slackly from the string; And one would pierce an outer ring, And one an inner, here and there; And last the master-bowman, he, Would cleave the mark. A willing ear The rapt oration flowing free From point to point, with power and grace And music in the bounds of law, To those conclusions when we saw The God within him light his face. And seem to lift the form, and glow And over those ethereal eyes The bar of Michael Angelo. LXXXVIII. ILD bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, O tell me where the senses mix, O tell me where the passions meet, Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ And in the midmost heart of grief Thy passion clasps a secret joy : And I-my harp would prelude woe- The glory of the sum of things Will flash along the chords and go. LXXXIX. ITCH-ELMS that counterchange the floor Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright; And thou, with all thy breadth and height Of foliage, towering sycamore; How often, hither wandering down, My Arthur found your shadows fair, And shook to all the liberal air The dust and din and steam of town: He brought an eye for all he saw; He mixt in all our simple sports; They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts And dusty purlieus of the law. O joy to him in this retreat, Immantled in ambrosial dark, To drink the cooler air, and mark The landscape winking thro' the heat : O sound to rout the brood of cares, The sweep of scythe in morning dew, The gust that round the garden flew, And tumbled half the mellowing pears! O bliss, when all in circle drawn About him, heart and ear were fed To hear him, as he lay and read The Tuscan poets on the lawn: Or in the all-golden afternoon A guest, or happy sister, sung, Or here she brought the harp and flung A ballad to the brightening moon: |