Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/1039

 A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, For all our art.

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn.

835. A Passer-by

Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest? Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest, When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling, Wilt thoù glìde on the blue Pacific, or rest In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.

I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest, Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air: I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest, And anchor queen of the strange shipping there, Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare: Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capp'd grandest Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.