English

Come , shepherds, come, impale your brows
With garlands of the choicest flowers
The time allows.
Come, nymphs, decked in your dangling hair
And unto Sylvia's shady bowers
With haste repair;
Where you shall see chaste turtles play,
And nightingales make lasting May,
As if old Time his youthful mind
To one delightful season had confined.

O N shepherds, on! we'll sacrifice
Those spotless lambs we prize
At highest rate, for Pan doth keep
From harm our scattering sheep:
And hath deserved

G RIEVE not, fond man, nor let one tear
Steal from thy eyes, she'll hear
No more of Cupid's shafts; they fly
For wounding her, so let them die.
For why shouldst thou nourish such flames as burn
Thy easy breast, and have not like return. Chorus:

Love forces love, as flames expire,
If not increased by gentle fire.

Let then her frigid coolness move

Come , follow your leader, follow;
Our convoy be Mars and Apollo,
The van comes brave up here; Answer
As hotly comes the rear. Omnes:
Our knackers are the fifes and drums,
Sa, Sa, the gipsies' army comes!

Horsemen we need not fear,
There's none but footmen here;
The horse sure charge without;
Or if they wheel about, Omnes:
Our knackers are the shot that fly,
Pit-a-pat rattling in the sky.

" AND his pure soul unto his Master, Christ,
Beneath whose banners he had fought so well."
O happy knight! O happy times that tell
Of simple faith that simple hearts sufficed,
And noble courage bred and honour pure
Shining so bright across the dusky years
To eyes bedimmed, alas! by selfish tears
And yearning hearts that cannot quite be sure.

Awake! thou dreamer; for thy life is here ;
Inconstant Time is changed, and changed art thou;
No trumpet sounds the onset loud and clear;
No crested helmet shines above thy brow;

A FACTIOUS rogue, traducer of the State,
Sent to a rebel's death: a noisy tongue
Silenced, a slave condemned, a felon hung —
O princes of the earth, securely great,
High in the place of power, can this abate
The splendour of your mailed majesty?
A felon on the gallows, what is he
To move your lofty souls to fear or hate?

O Caesar, Lord of Lords and King of Kings,
Throned in the palace by the silver sea,
Far have thy conquering eagles spread their wings,
A hundred noble nations own thy sway;

I HEARD Him with the hearing of the ears;
I saw Him with the seeing of the eyes;
And therefore am I learned, am I wise —
Not like the watchers of the long dark years,
The idle dreamers and unseeing seers,
Whose bootless cries, importunate and vain,
Vexed the dumb heavens that answered not again,
Who searched the dark abysses through their tears,
And saw no light. And I have heard and seen —
I stood before the Master face to face;
I heard him call. But he , the child of shame,
The dull unlettered churl, the poor and mean,

SPRING

The rock-girt vale is bursting into flower,
And here I make my solitary moan —
" Alone, alone" — and was He not alone
Then when the faithful could not watch one hour?
When Fate and Death with all their gathered power
Encircled Him; and Fear and Black Despair
Stood near with levelled darts and mocking stare,
And bade Him yield — and did He shrink and cower,
Refuse the bitter cup, and summoning
The bright battalions of the host of heaven,
Avenge his slighted God-head? Power was His,

The cold eternal silence of the skies,
The hungry roaring of the insensate sea —
What healing medicine can they bring to me,
What help or comfort to the soul that cries
For love and pity? And you, the great and wise,
Who weave your cunning web of end and cause,
How will your flinty code and iron laws
Profit the hungry heart that faints and dies
For bread, not stones? — O soft and gentle voice!
O words that thrill across the waste of years!
O tender eyes that sorrow and rejoice!
Tender with human smiles and human tears,

In thunder spoken from the trembling hills,
In fiery letters written on the sky,
We hear and see Thy Word O Thou most High,
The Word which made and makes and rules and wills,
The Word which gave the promise, and fulfils,
The law supreme, which suffers no reply,
The law which bids us live and bids us die,
Which made and can unmake, quickens and kills.

" I am " — the dread " I am " in thunder rolls
His awful judgments from the height of heaven,
And we, for whom the cloudy veil is riven,

Bright from the place of light with wings that flamed
The splendid envoy flashed along the sky,
And down the realm of darkness from on high
Shot like a star, God-driven — Sure, he yearned
For that bright home of his, and proudly spurned
The vapours gross that clogged his feet and eyes;
And, sure, with wandering and sad surmise,
He did the appointed errand and returned.

What said he, he the chief of angels, he
Who stands before the Presence, face to face?
What message did he bring to earth and sea,