Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. CVII. T is the day when he was born, A bitter day that early sank Of vapour, leaving night forlorn. The time admits not flowers or leaves And bristles all the brakes and thorns To yon hard crescent, as she hangs Above the wood which grides and clangs Its leafless ribs and iron horns Together, in the drifts that pass To darken on the rolling brine That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, Arrange the board and brim the glass; Bring in great logs and let them lie, Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat Of all things ev'n as he were by; We keep the day. With festal cheer, Will drink to him, whate'er he be, And sing the songs he loved to hear. CVIII. WILL not shut me from my kind. And, lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind: What profit lies in barren faith, And vacant yearning, tho' with might To scale the heaven's highest height, Or dive below the wells of Death? What find I in the highest place, But mine own phantom chanting hymns? And on the depths of death there swims The reflex of a human face. I'll rather take what fruit may be Of sorrow under human skies: 'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. CIX. EART-AFFLUENCE in discursive talk From household fountains never dry; That saw thro' all the Muses' walk; Seraphic intellect and force To seize and throw the doubts of man; Impassion❜'d logic, which outran The hearer in its fiery course; High nature amorous of the good, But touch'd with no ascetic gloom; And passion pure in snowy bloom Thro' all the years of April blood; |