sleep

I MUSE among these silent fanes
Whose spacious darkness guards your dust;
Around me sleep the hoary plains
That hold your ancient wars in trust.

I pause, my dreaming spirit hears,
Across the wind's unquiet tides,
The glimmering music of your spears,
The laughter of your royal brides.

In vain, O Kings, doth time aspire
To make your names oblivion's sport,
While yonder hill wears like a tier
The ruined grandeur of your fort.

Though centuries falter and decline,

The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby street
Comes stealing; comes creeping;
The poppies they hang from her head to her feet,
And each hath a dream that is tiny and fleet -
She bringeth her poppies to you, my sweet,
When she findeth you sleeping!

There is one little dream of a beautiful drum -
"Rub-a-dub!" it goeth;
There is one little dream of a big sugar-plum,
And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come
Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum,
And a trumpet that bloweth!

And they shook their sweetness out in their sleep
On the brink of that beautiful stream,
But it wandered along with a wearisome song
Like a lover that walks in a dream:
So the roses blew
When the winds went through,
In the moonlight so white and still;
But the river it beat
All night at the feet
Of a cold and flinty hill -
Of a hard and senseless hill!

I said, "We have often showered our loves
Upon something as dry as the dust;
And the faith that is crost, and the hearts that are lost -

In my first sleep
I came to the river
And looked down
Through the clear water -
Only in dream
Water so pure,
Laced and undulant
Lines of flow
On its rocky bed
Water of life
Streaming for ever.

A house was there
Beside the river
And I, arrived,
An expected guest
About to explore
Old gardens and libraries -
But the car was waiting
To drive me away.

One last look
Into that bright stream -
Trout there were
And clear on the bottom

You may think my life is quiet.
I find it full of change,
An ever-varied diet,
As piquant as 'tis strange.

Wild thoughts are always flying,
Like sparks across my brain,
Now flashing out, now dying,
To kindle soon again.

Fine fancies set me thrilling,
And subtle monsters creep
Before my sight unwilling:
They even haunt my sleep.

One broad, perpetual riot
Enfolds me night and day.
You think my life is quiet?
You don't know what you say.

NO city I to Rheims would e'er prefer:
Of France the pride and honour I aver;
The Holy Ampoule and delicious wine,
Which ev'ry one regards as most divine,
We'll set apart, and other objects take:
The beauties round a paradise might make!
I mean not tow'rs nor churches, gates, nor streets;
But charming belles with soft enchanting sweets:
Such oft among the fair Rhemese we view:
Kings might be proud those graces to pursue.

ONE 'mong these belles had to the altar led,
A painter, much esteemed, and who had bread.

The REVEREND MICAH SOWLS,
He shouts and yells and howls,
He screams, he mouths, he bumps,
He foams, he rants, he thumps.

His armour he has buckled on, to wage
The regulation war against the Stage;
And warns his congregation all to shun
"The Presence-Chamber of the Evil One,"

The subject's sad enough
To make him rant and puff,
And fortunately, too,
His Bishop's in a pew.

So REVEREND MICAH claps on extra steam,
His eyes are flashing with superior gleam,
He is as energetic as can be,

I

AT Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away;
“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!”
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: “’Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?”

II

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: “I know you are no coward;

Trumpets of the Lancer Corps
Sound a loud reveille;
Sound it over Sydney shore,
Send the message far and wide
Down the Richmond River side.
Boot and Saddle, mount and ride,
Sound a loud reveille.
Whither go ye, Lancers gay,
With your bold reveille?
O'er the ocean far away
From your sunny southern home,
Over leagues of trackless foam
In a foreign land to roam,
With your bold reveille.

When we hear our brethren call,
Sound a clear reveille.
Then we answer, one and all,

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,