Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/917

 —Whose praise do they mention Of what is it told?— What will be for ever. What was from of old.

First hymn they the Father Of all things: and then, The rest of Immortals, The action of men.

The Day in his hotness, The strife with the palm; The Night in her silence, The Stars in their calm.

749. To Marguerite

Yes: in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown. Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know.

But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour;

O then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent!