Hope will come back with the spring, Joy with the lark’s returning; Love must awake betimes, When crocus buds are a-burning. Hawthorns will follow the snow, The robin his tryst be keeping; Winds will blow in the May, Waking the pulses a-sleeping. Snowdrops will whiten the hills, Violets hide in the hollow: Pan will be drunken and rage-- But Apollo, the god, Apollo? PARADOX I knew them both upon Miranda’s isle, Which is of youth a sea-bound seigniory: Misshapen Caliban, so seeming vile, And Ariel, proud prince of minstrelsy, Who did forsake the sunset for my tower And like a star above my slumber burned. The night was held in silver chains by power Of melody, in which all longings yearned-- Star-grasping youth in one wild strain expressed, Tender as dawn, insistent as the tide; The heart of night and summer stood confessed. I rose aglow and flung the lattice wide-- Ah, jest of art, what mockery and pang! Alack, it was poor Caliban who sang. IN MEDIA VITA Streams of the spring a-singing, Winds of the May that blow, Birds from the Southland winging, Buds in the grasses below. Clouds that speed hurrying over, And the climbing rose by the wall, Singing of bees in the clover, And the dead, under all! Lads and their sweethearts lying In the cleft of the windy hill; Hearts that are hushed of their sighing, Lips that are tender and still. Stars in the purple gloaming, Flowers that suffuse and fall, Twitter of bird-mates homing, And the dead, under all! Herdsman abroad with his collie, Girls on their way to the fair, Young lads a-chasing their folly, Parsons a-praying their prayer. Children their kites a-flying, Grandsires that nod by the wall, Mothers soft lullabies sighing, And the dead, under all! EVENING SONG Dear love, what thing of all the things that be Is ever worth one thought from you or me, Save only Love, Save only Love? The days so short, the nights so quick to flee, The world so wide, so deep and dark the sea, So dark the sea; So far the suns and every listless star, Beyond their light--Ah! dear, who knows how far, Who knows how far? One thing of all dim things I know is true, The heart within me knows, and tells it you, And tells it you. So blind is life, so long at last is sleep, And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep, And none but Love, And none but Love. LAMENT FOR MARSYAS