Friend of my chamber--O thou spiral shell
That murmurest of the ever-murmuring sea!
Repeating with eternal constancy
Whatever memories the wave can tell;
Whatever harmonies may rise and swell,
Whatever sadness in the deep may be--
They are the ocean's, and desired of thee;
Thou treasurest what thou dost love so well.
So all my heart is one voluted fold,
Shielding one face, and evermore it seems
Upon the threshold of the prying day,
Hid in the tangle of reluctant dreams;
And in the noontide, and the evening grey,

Curly locks, Curly Locks, wilt thou be ours?
Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet weed the flowers,
But stand in the kitchen and cook a fine meal,
And ride every night in an automobile.

Curly Locks, Curly Locks, come to us soon!
Thou needest not to rise until mid-afternoon;
Thou mayest be Croatian, Armenian, or Greek;
Thy guerdon shall be what thy askest per week.

Curly Locks, Curly Locks, give us a chance!
Thou shalt not wash windows, nor iron my pants.
Oh, come to the cosiest of seven-room bowers,

THOU singest, thou, me seems,
Coming from high Parnassus; where thy head
Beside the silent streams,
Among fast-fading blooms, hath fashioned
A pillow of pale dreams;
While from thee, sleeping, gods, of heart and soul,
Have taken fullest toll.

Thou knowest at what cost
Thy sleep was taken on those awful hills--
What thou hast gained, and lost;
Thou knowest, too, if what thou art fulfils
The pledge of what thou wast;
And if all compensates the poet's wreath
That wounds the brow beneath.

Minstrel, what have you to do
With this man that, after you,
Sharing not your happy fate,
Sat as England's Laureate?
Vainly, in these iron days,
Strives the poet in your praise,
Minstrel, by whose singing side
Beauty walked, until you died.

Still, though none should hark again,
Drones the blue-fly in the pane,
Thickly crusts the blackest moss,
Blows the rose its musk across,
Floats the boat that is forgot
None the less to Camelot.

Many a bard's untimely death
Lends unto his verses breath;

And why an honour'd ragged shirt, that shows,
Like tatter'd ensigns, all its bodie's blows?
Should it be swathed in a vest so dire,
It were enough to set the child on fire;
Dishevell'd queen[s] should strip them of their hair,
And in it mantle the new rising heir:
Nor do I know ought worth to wrap it in,
Except my parchment upper-coat of skin;
And then expect no end of its chast tears,
That first was rowl'd in down, now furs of bears.

But since to ladies 't hath a custome been
Linnen to send, that travail and lye in;

THOUGH thou did'st hear the tempest from afar,
And felt'st the horrors of the wat'ry war,
To me unknown, yet on this peaceful shore
Methinks I hear the storm tumultuous roar,
And how stern Boreas with impetuous hand
Compell'd the Nereids to usurp the land.
Reluctant rose the daughters of the main,
And slow ascending glided o'er the plain,
Till AEolus in his rapid chariot drove
In gloomy grandeur from the vault above:
Furious he comes. His winged sons obey
Their frantic sire, and madden all the sea.

O! had my Fate been join'd with thine,
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But, now, thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another.

Perhaps, his peace I could destroy,

Am I despised, because you say;
And I dare swear, that I am gray?
Know, Lady, you have but your day!
And time will come when you shall wear
Such frost and snow upon your hair;
And when, though long, it comes to pass,
You question with your looking-glass,
And in that sincere crystal seek
But find no rose-bud in your cheek,
Nor any bed to give the shew
Where such a rare carnation grew:-
Ah! then too late, close in your chamber keeping,
It will be told
That you are old,--
By those true tears you're weeping.

No marvell if the Sunne's bright eye
Shower downe hott flames; that qualitie
Still waytes on light; but when wee see
Those sparkling balles of ebony
Distil such heat, the gazer straight
Stands so amazed at the sight
As when the lightning makes a breach
Through pitchie clouds: can lightning reach
The marrowe hurting not the skynne?
Your eyes to me the same have byn;
Can jett invite the loving strawe
With secrett fire? so those can draw,
And can, where ere they glance a dart,
Make stubble of the strongest hart.

As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert;—when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields;
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excelled;
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
My sense with their deliciousness was spelled: