Saying, "You will live to see So I never quite despair, That is lost, that is lost. Once when I was pure and young, Or a wrinkle creased my brow, FANTASY. BREAK, Fantasy, from thy cave of cloud, And spread thy purple wings, And, though it be a waking dream, And fall like sleep upon their eyes, BEN JONSON. PHOENIX AND TURTLE DOVE. LET the bird of loudest lay, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Let the priest in surplice white And thou treble-dated crow, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. So they loved, as love in twain Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance, and no space was seen 'Twixt the turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine, That the turtle saw his right At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell; It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it Love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once. The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid Will make a man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep, Then dreams he of another benefice: Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes, And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plaits the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes. SHAKSPEARE: Romeo and Juliet. Then to the noblest princes fellow might he be. WARTON: Little Garden of Roses. KUBLA KHAN. IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incensebearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Infolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demonlover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: |