Collected Works (Vol. I)

44 Ifere on the bank I stand In this grey barren land Of winter, and the doubtful glint of spring If on the hills there ¢low Through the thick mist of snow sunshine from westward in the evening ; While in a dell appear Violets and snowdrops clear, Buds of the Jarch, and swallows on the wing, Ere once again the storm Lofty and multiform Close the bright glimpse of summer and the hope of everything, Silence her throne assumes, Stars mount the sky, and looms The misty monarch of the dale on high : About the silver fect I worship, as is meet, The warrior God that fixed sky, Rent the cavernous earth, Moulded in awful birth The terror of the cloudy canopy, And tore from underground The lake’s immense profound, And clad the mountains now with this faint snow embroidery. the curved Now the white flakes decrease. Wastwater lies in peace, Kissed by the breezes where the wind once bit ; Gable alone doth stand, A Pyramid more grand Than Pharaoh’s pride exalted, or the wit Of magian shepherds built Who sought his land and spilt Blood of ten million slaves to conquer it.! Clad in sparse robes of white The mountain beckons Night Her tracery of azure with the cold moon-rays to knit. 1 The reference isto the ‘‘ Shepherd Kings” of Abydos, who, says one theory, built Ghizeh. SONGS OF THE SPIRIT Armoured with secret might [ stand on earth upright, Strong in the power of Ilim who welded ‘arth, Barred in the sky with steel, And breathed upon the wheel Of this vast scheme of stars, and made Him mirth In the poor dreams of us Who strive mysterious To pierce the bands of sense, and break the eirth Of our own minds’ desire, Till He relume the fire Lost at our fall, not kindled fresh till that diviner birth, IN NEVILLE’S COURT, TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. J THINK the souls of many men are here Among these cloisters, underneath the spire That the moon silvers with magnetic fire ; But not a moon-ray ts it, that so clear Shines on the pavement, for a voice of fear It hath, mocks My ear, and waves his old majestic locks About his head. There fell upon my ear : unless it be the breeze that ‘*Q soul contemplative of distant things, Who hast a poet’s heart, even if thy pen Be dry and barren, who dost hold Love dear, Speed forth this message on the fiery wings Of stinging song to all the race of men: That they have hope ; for we are happy here.” 1 The ‘‘ Voice” is that of Lord Tennyson, whose rooms were in this court.