Four Songs Of Four Seasons
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. WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLANDOUTSIDE the gardenThe wet skies harden;The gates are barred onThe summer side:"Shut out the flower-time,Sunbeam and shower-time;Make way for our time,"Wild winds have cried.Green once and cheery,The woods, worn weary,Sigh as the drearyWeak sun goes home:A great wind grapplesThe wave, and dapplesThe dead green floor of the sea with foam. Through fell and moorland,And salt-sea foreland,Our noisy norlandResounds and rings;Waste waves thereunderAre blown in sunder,And winds make thunderWith cloudwide wings;Sea-drift makes dimmerThe beacon's glimmer;Nor sail nor swimmerCan try the tides;And snowdrifts thickenWhere, when leaves quicken,Under the heather the sundew hides. Green land and red land,Moorside and headland,Are white as dead land,Are all as one;Nor honied heather,Nor bells to gather,Fair with fair weatherAnd faithful sun:Fierce frost has eatenAll flowers that sweetenThe fells rain-beaten;And winds their foesHave made the snow's bedDown in the rose-bed;Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose. Bury her deeperThan any sleeper;Sweet dreams will keep herAll day, all night;Though sleep benumb herAnd time o'ercome her,She dreams of summer,And takes delight,Dreaming and sleepingIn love's good keeping,While rain is weepingAnd no leaves cling;Winds will come bringing herComfort, and singing herStories and songs and good news of the spring. Draw the white curtainClose, and be certainShe takes no hurt inHer soft low bed;She feels no colder,And grows not older,Though snows enfold herFrom foot to head;She turns not chillyLike weed and lilyIn marsh or hillyHigh watershed,Or green soft islandIn lakes of highland;She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead. For all the hours,Come sun, come showers,Are friends of flowers,And fairies all;When frost entrapped her,They came and lapped herIn leaves, and wrapped herWith shroud and pall;In red leaves wound her,With dead leaves bound herDead brows, and round herA death-knell rang;Rang the death-bell for her,Sang, "is it well for her,Well, is it well with you, rose?" they sang. O what and where isThe rose now, fairies,So shrill the air is,So wild the sky?Poor last of roses,Her worst of woes isThe noise she knows isThe winter's cry;His hunting holloHas scared the swallow;Fain would she followAnd fain would fly:But wind unsettlesHer poor last petals;Had she but wings, and she would not die. Come, as you love her,Come close and coverHer white face over,And forth againEre sunset glancesOn foam that dances,Through lowering lancesOf bright white rain;And make your playtimeOf winter's daytime,As if the MaytimeWere here to sing;As if the snowballsWere soft like blowballs,Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring. Each reed that grows inOur stream is frozen,The fields it flows inAre hard and black;The water-fairyWaits wise and waryTill time shall varyAnd thaws come back."O sister, water,"The wind besought her,"O twin-born daughterOf spring with me,Stay with me, play with me,Take the warm way with me,Straight for the summer and oversea." But winds will vary,And wise and waryThe patient fairyOf water waits;All shrunk and wizen,In iron prison,Till spring re-risenUnbar the gates;Till, as with clamorOf axe and hammer,Chained streams that stammerAnd struggle in straitsBurst bonds that shiver,And thaws deliverThe roaring river in stormy spates. In fierce March weatherWhite waves break tether,And whirled togetherAt either hand,Like weeds uplifted,The tree-trunks riftedIn spars are drifted,Like foam or sand,Past swamp and sallowAnd reed-beds callow,Through pool and shallow,To wind and lee,Till, no more tongue-tied,Full flood and young tideRoar down the rapids and storm the sea. As men's cheeks fadedOn shores invaded,When shorewards wadedThe lords of fight;When churl and cravenSaw hard on havenThe wide-winged ravenAt mainmast height;When monks affrightedTo windward sightedThe birds full-flightedOf swift sea-kings;So earth turns palerWhen Storm the sailorSteers in with a roar in the race of his wings. O strong sea-sailor,Whose cheek turns palerFor wind or hail orFor fear of thee?O far sea-farer,O thunder-bearer,Thy songs are rarerThan soft songs be.O fleet-foot stranger,O north-sea rangerThrough days of dangerAnd ways of fear,Blow thy horn here for us,Blow the sky clear for us,Send us the song of the sea to hear. Roll the strong stream of itUp, till the scream of itWake from a dream of itChildren that sleep,Seamen that fare for themForth, with a prayer for them:Shall not God care for themAngels not keep?Spare not the surgesThy stormy scourges;Spare us the dirgesOf wives that weep.Turn back the waves for us:Dig no fresh graves for us,Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep. O stout north-easter,Sea-king, land-waster,For all thine haste, orThy stormy skill,Yet hadst thou never,For all endeavour,Strength to disseverOr strength to spill,Save of his givingWho gave our living,Whose hands are weavingWhat ours fulfil;Whose feet tread underThe storms and thunder;Who made our wonder to work his will. His years and hours,His world's blind powers,His stars and flowers,His nights and days,Sea-tide and river,And waves that shiver,Praise God, the giverOf tongues to praise.Winds in their blowing,And fruits in growing;Time in its going,While time shall be;In death and living,With one thanksgiving,Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea. II. SPRING IN TUSCANYROSE-RED lilies that bloom on the banner;Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring;Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb,Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan herWith wind more soft than a wild dove's wing,What do they sing in the spring of their time If this be the rose that the world hears singing,Soft in the soft night, loud in the day,Songs for the fireflies to dance as they hear;If that be the song of the nightingale, springingForth in the form of a rose in May,What do they say of the way of the year? What of the way of the world gone Maying,What of the work of the buds in the bowers,What of the will of the wind on the wall,Fluttering the wall-flowers, sighing and playing,Shrinking again as a bird that cowers,Thinking of hours when the flowers have to fall? Out of the throats of the loud birds showering,Out of the folds where the flag-lilies leap,Out of the mouths of the roses stirred,Out of the herbs on the walls reflowering,Out of the heights where the sheer snows sleep,Out of the deep and the steep, one word. One from the lips of the lily-flames leaping,The glad red lilies that burn in our sight,The great live lilies for standard and crown;One from the steeps where the pines stand sleeping,One from the deep land, one from the height,One from the light and the might of the town. The lowlands laugh with delight of the highlands,Whence May winds feed them with balm and breathFrom hills that beheld in the years behindA shape as of one from the blest souls' islands,Made fair by a soul too fair for death,With eyes on the light that should smite them blind. Vallombrosa remotely remembers,Perchance, what still to us seems so nearThat time not darkens it, change not mars,The foot that she knew when her leaves were September's,The face lift up to the star-blind seer,That saw from his prison arisen his stars. And Pisa broods on her dead, not mourning,For love of her loveliness given them in fee;And Prato gleams with the glad monk's giftWhose hand was there as the hand of morning;And Siena, set in the sand's red sea,Lifts loftier her head than the red sand's drift. And far to the fair south-westward lightens,Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers,At sunset over the love-lit lands,The hill-side's crown where the wild hill brightens,Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers,Hailing the sun with a hundred hands. Land of us all that have loved thee dearliest,Mother of men that were lords of man,Whose name in the world's heart work a spellMy last song's light, and the star of mine earliest,As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span,Fare well we may not who say farewell. III. SUMMER IN AUVERGNETHE sundawn fills the landFull as a feaster's handFills full with bloom of blandBright wine his cup;Flows full to flood that fillsFrom the arch of air it thrillsThose rust-red iron hillsWith morning up. Dawn, as a panther springs,With fierce and fire-fledged wingsLeaps on the land that ringsFrom her bright feetThrough all its lava-blackCones that cast answer backAnd cliffs of footless trackWhere thunders meet. The light speaks wide and loudFrom deeps blown clean of cloudAs though day's heart were proudAnd heaven's were glad;The towers brown-striped and greyTake fire from heaven of dayAs though the prayers they prayTheir answers had. Higher in these high first hoursWax all the keen church towers,And higher all hearts of oursThan the old hills' crown,Higher than the pillared heightOf that strange cliff-side brightWith basalt towers whose mightStrong time bows down. And the old fierce ruin thereOf the old wild princes' lairWhose blood in mine hath shareGapes gaunt and greatToward heaven that long agoWatched all the wan land's woeWhereon the wind would blowOf their bleak hate. Dead are those deeds; but yetTheir memory seems to fretLands that might else forgetThat old world's brand;Dead all their sins and days;Yet in this red clime's raysSome fiery memory staysThat sears their land. IV. AUTUMN IN CORNWALLTHE year lies fallen and fadedOn cliffs by clouds invaded,With tongues of storms upbraided,With wrath of waves bedinned;And inland, wild with warning,As in deaf ears or scorning,The clarion even and morningRings of the south-west wind. The wild bents wane and witherIn blasts whose breath bows hitherTheir grey-grown heads and thither,Unblest of rain or sun;The pale fierce heavens are crowdedWith shapes like dreams beclouded,As though the old year enshroudedLay, long ere life were done. Full-charged with oldworld wonders,From dusk Tintagel thundersA note that smites and sundersThe hard frore fields of air;A trumpet stormier-soundedThan once from lists reboundedWhen strong men sense-confoundedFell thick in tourney there. From scarce a duskier dwellingSuch notes of wail rose wellingThrough the outer darkness, tellingIn the awful singer's earsWhat souls the darkness covers,What love-lost souls of lovers,Whose cry still hangs and hoversIn each man's born that hears. For there by Hector's brotherAnd yet some thousand otherHe that had grief to motherPassed pale from Dante's sight;With one fast linked as fearless,Perchance, there only tearless;Iseult and Tristram, peerlessAnd perfect queen and knight. A shrill-winged sound comes flyingNorth, as of wild souls cryingThe cry of things undying,That know what life must be;Or as the old year's heart, strickenToo sore for hope to quickenBy thoughts like thorns that thicken,Broke, breaking with the sea.
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