CXV. OW fades the last long streak of snow, About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow. Now rings the woodland loud and long, And drown'd in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song. Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, And milkier every milky sail On winding stream or distant sea; Where now the seamew pipes, or dives In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change their sky To build and brood; that live their lives From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too; and my regret And buds and blossoms like the rest. CXVI. S it, then, regret for buried time And meets the year, and gives and takes The colours of the crescent prime? Not all the songs, the stirring air, Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust Not all regret: the face will shine Upon me, while I muse alone; And that dear voice, I once have known Still speak to me of me and mine: Yet less of sorrow lives in me For days of happy commune dead; Than some strong bond which is to be. CXVII. DAYS and hours, your work is this, A little while from his embrace, For fuller gain of after bliss: That out of distance might ensue And unto meeting when we meet, Delight a hundredfold accrue, For every grain of sand that runs, And every kiss of toothed wheels, And all the courses of the suns. CXVIII. ONTEMPLATE all this work of Time, Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature's earth and lime; But trust that those we call the dead For ever nobler ends. They say, In tracts of fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at the last arose the man; |