348 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
348 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
1890
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FLOWERS OF GOLD
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by Oscar Wilde
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IMPRESSIONS
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I
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Les Silhouettes
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The sea is flecked with bars of gray,
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The dull dead wind is out of tune,
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And like a withered leaf the moon
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Is blown across the stormy bay.
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Etched clear upon the pallid sand
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The black boat lies: a sailor boy
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Clambers aboard in careless joy
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With laughing face and gleaming hand.
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And overhead the curlews cry,
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Where through the dusky upland grass
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The young brown-throated reapers pass,
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Like silhouettes against the sky.
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II
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La Fuite de la Lune
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To outer senses there is peace,
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A dreamy peace on either hand,
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Deep silence in the shadowy land,
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Deep silence where the shadows cease.
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Save for a cry that echoes shrill
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From some lone bird disconsolate;
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A corncrake calling to its mate;
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The answer from the misty hill.
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And suddenly the moon withdraws
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Her sickle from the lightening skies,
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And to her sombre cavern flies,
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Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.
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THE GRAVE OF KEATS
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Rid of the world's injustice, and his pain,
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He rests at last beneath God's veil of blue:
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Taken from life when life and love were new
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The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
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Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
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No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
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But gentle violets weeping with the dew
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Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
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O proudest heart that broke for misery!
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O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
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O poet-painter of our English land!
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Thy name was writ in water-- it shall stand:
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And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
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As Isabella did her Basil tree.
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Rome
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THEOCRITUS
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A Villanelle
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O singer of Persephone!
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In the dim meadows desolate
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Dost thou remember Sicily?
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Still through the ivy flits the bee
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Where Amaryllis lies in state;
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O Singer of Persephone!
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Simaetha calls on Hecate
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And hears the wild dogs at the gate:
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Dost thou remember Sicily?
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Still by the light and laughing sea
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Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate:
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O Singer of Persephone!
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And still in boyish rivalry
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Young Daphnis challenges his mate:
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Dost thou remember Sicily?
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Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
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For thee the jocund shepherds wait,
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O Singer of Persephone!
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Dost thou remember Sicily?
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IN THE GOLD ROOM
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A Harmony
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Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
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Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
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Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
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Rustle their pale leaves listlessly,
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Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
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When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.
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Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
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Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
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On the burnished disk of the marigold,
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Or the sun-flower turning to meet the sun
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When the gloom of the jealous night is done,
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And the spear of the lily is aureoled.
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And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine
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Burned like the ruby fire set
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In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,
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Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,
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Or the heart of lotus drenched and wet
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With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.
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BALLADE DE MARGUERITE
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Normande
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I am weary of lying within the chase
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When the knights are meeting in market-place.
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Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town
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Lest the hooves of the war-horse tread thee down.
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But I would not go where the Squires ride,
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I would only walk by my Lady's side.
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Alack! and alack! thou art over bold,
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A Forester's son may not eat off gold.
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Will she love me the less that my Father is seen
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Each Martinmas day in a doublet green?
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Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,
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Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.
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Ah, if she is working the arras bright
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I might ravel the threads by the firelight.
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Perchance she is hunting of the deer,
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Flow could you follow o'er hill and mere?
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Ah, if she is riding with the court,
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I might run beside her and wind the morte.
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Perchance she is kneeling in S. Denys,
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(On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!)
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Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,
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I might swing the censer and ring the bell.
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Come in my son, for you look sae pale,
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Thy father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.
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But who are these knights in bright array?
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Is it a pageant the rich folks play?
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'Tis the King of England from over sea,
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Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.
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But why does the curfew tool sae low
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And why do the mourners walk a-row?
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O 'tis Hugh of Amiens my sister's son
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Who is lying stark, for his day is done.
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Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,
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It is no strong man who lies on the bier.
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O 'tis old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,
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I knew she would die at the autumn fall.
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Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,
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Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.
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O 'tis none of our kith and none of our kin,
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(Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)
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But I hear the boy's voice chanting sweet,
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"Elle est morte, la Marguerite."
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Come in my son and lie on the bed,
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And let the dead folk bury their dead.
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O mother, you know I loved her true:
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O mother, hath one grave room for two?
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THE DOLE OF THE KING'S DAUGHTER
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Breton
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Seven stars in the still water,
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And seven in the sky;
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Seven sins on the King's daughter,
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Deep in her soul to lie.
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Red roses are at her feet,
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(Roses are red in her red-gold hair,)
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And O where her bosom and girdle meet
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Red roses are hidden there.
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Fair is the knight who lieth slain
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Amid the rush and reed,
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See the lean fishes that are fain
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Upon dead men to feed.
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Sweet is the page that lieth there,
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(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
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See the black ravens in the air,
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Black, O black as the night are they.
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What do they there so stark and dead?
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(There is blood upon her hand)
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Why are the lilies flecked with red,
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(There is blood on the river sand.)
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There are two that ride from the south and east,
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And two from the north and west,
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For the black raven a goodly feast,
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For the King's daughter rest.
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There is one man who loves her true
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(Red, O red, is the stain of gore!
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He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,
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(One grave will do for four.)
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No moon in the still heaven,
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In the black water none,
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The sins on her soul are seven,
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The sin upon his is one.
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AMOR INTELLECTUALIS
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Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly
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And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
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From antique reeds to common folk unknown
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And often launched our bark upon that sea
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Which the nine muses hold in empery,
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And plowed free furrows through the wave and foam,
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Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
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Till we had freighted well our argosy.
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Of which despoiled treasures these remain,
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Sordello's passion, and the honeyed line
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Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
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Driving him pampered jades, and more than these,
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The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,
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And grave-browed Milton's solemn harmonics.
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SANTA DECCA
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THE Gods are dead: no longer do we bring
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To gray-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!
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Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
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And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
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For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning
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By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er:
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Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
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Great Pan is dead, and Mary's Son is King.
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And yet- perchance in this sea-tranced isle,
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Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,
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Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.
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Ah Love! if such there be then it were well
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For us to fly his anger: nay, but see
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The leaves are stirring: let us watch a-while.
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Corfu
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A VISION
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Two crowned Kings and One that stood alone
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With no green weight of laurels round his head,
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But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
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And wearied with man's never-ceasing moan
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For sins no bleating victim can atone,
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And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.
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Girt was he in a garment black and red,
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And at his feet I marked a broken stone
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Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees,
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Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame
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I cried to Beatrice, "Who are these?"
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"Aeschylos first, the second Sophokles,
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And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides."
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IMPRESSION DE VOYAGE
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The sea was sapphire colored, and the sky
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Burned like a heated opal through the air,
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We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
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For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
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From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
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Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
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Ithaca's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak,
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And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
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The flapping of the sail against the mast,
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The ripple of the water on the side,
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The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern,
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The only sounds:- when 'gan the West to burn,
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And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
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I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!
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Katakolo
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THE GRAVE OF SHELLEY
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Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
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Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
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Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
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And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
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And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
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In the still chamber of yon pyramid
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Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
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Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
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Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
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Of Earth great mother of eternal sleep,
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But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
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In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
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Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
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Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.
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Rome
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BY THE ARNO
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The oleander on the wall
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Grows crimson in the dawning light,
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Though the gray shadows of the night
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Lie yet on Florence like a pall.
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The dew is bright upon the hill,
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And bright the blossoms overhead,
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But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
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The little Attic song is still.
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Only the leaves are gently stirred
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By, the soft breathing of the gale,
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And in the almond-scented vale
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The lonely nightingale is heard
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The day will make thee silent soon,
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O nightingale sing on for love!
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While yet upon the shadowy grove
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Splinter the arrows of the moon.
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Before across the silent lawn
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In sea-green mist the morning steals,
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And to love's frightened eyes reveals
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The long white fingers of the dawn.
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Fast climbing up the eastern sky,
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To grasp and slay the shuddering night,
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All careless of my heart's delight,
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Or if the nightingale should die.
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THE END
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