CXL. THE BANQUET. Now, as when sometime with high festival Lack yet some love to make the strange thing fair, Sheep from the sheepfold strayed they know not where. CXLI. THE NIGHT'S MESSAGE. LAST night there came a message to mine ear And I arose and went forth without fear Drank in amazed the large moon's purity: But when the moon had set, a great mist lay On the e rth and me, and to its wide soft breast Drew forth the secret woe we might not say. Then slowly, its brooding presence lightlier pressed, It heaved, and broke, and swayed, and soared away : And the Earth had morn, and I some space of rest. OXLII. MILTON. He left the upland lawns and serene air The signs of his life's dayspring, calm and fair. In darkness, listening to the thunder's roll. CXLIII. IMMORTALITY. So when the old delight is born anew Seems it not all as one first trembling kiss 'O nights how desolate, O days how few, O death in life, if life be this, be this! Lo all that age is as a speck of sand Lost on the long beach where the tides are free, And no man metes it in his hollow hand Nor cares to ponder it, how small it be ; At ebb it lies forgotten on the land And at full tide forgotten in the sea. CXLIV. WOULD GOD IT WERE MORNING. My God, how many times ere I be dead Compose me and surrender me and so Thro' many a wild enormity of woe? And grey, and blinded with the stormy burst H |