We talk of moons and cooling suns, Of geologic time and tide, The eternal sluggards that abide While our fair love so swiftly runs, Of nature that doth half consent That man should guess her dreary scheme Lest he should live too well content In his fair house of mirth and dream: Whose labour irks his ageing heart, His heart that wearies of desire, Being so fugitive a part Of what so slowly must expire. She in her agelong toil and care Persistent, wearies not nor stays, Mocking alike hope and despair. —Ah, but she too can mock our praise, Enchanted on her brighter days, Days, that the thought of grief refuse, Days that are one with human art, Worthy of the Virgilian muse, Fit for the gaiety of Mozart. 12 Riding adown the country lanes One day in spring, Heavy at heart with all the pains Of man’s imagining:— The mist was not yet melted quite Into the sky: The small round sun was dazzling white, The merry larks sang high: The grassy northern slopes were laid In sparkling dew, Out of the slow-retreating shade Turning from sleep anew: Deep in the sunny vale a burn Ran with the lane, O’erhung with ivy, moss and fern It laughed in joyful strain: And primroses shot long and lush Their cluster’d cream: Robin and wren and amorous thrush Carol’d above the stream: The stillness of the lenten air Call’d into sound The motions of all life that were In field and farm around: So fair it was, so sweet and bright, The jocund Spring Awoke in me the old delight Of man’s imagining, Riding adown the country lanes: The larks sang high.— O heart! for all thy griefs and pains Thou shalt be loth to die. 13 PATER FILIO Sense with keenest edge unusèd, Yet unsteel’d by scathing fire; Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd On the ways of dark desire; Sweetest hope that lookest smiling O’er the wilderness defiling! Why such beauty, to be blighted By the swarm of foul destruction? Why such innocence delighted, When sin stalks to thy seduction? All the litanies e’er chaunted Shall not keep thy faith undaunted. I have pray’d the sainted Morning To unclasp her hands to hold thee; From resignful Eve’s adorning Stol’n a robe of peace to enfold thee; With all charms of man’s contriving Arm’d thee for thy lonely striving. Me too once unthinking Nature, —Whence Love’s timeless mockery took me,— Fashion’d so divine a creature, Yea, and like a beast forsook me. I forgave, but tell the measure Of her crime in thee, my treasure. 14 NOVEMBER