III

AN INVOCATION OF PHANTASY

(FROM BEN JONSON'S "VISION of Delight")

BREAK, Phant'sie, from thy cave of cloud,

And spread thy purple wings:
Now all thy figures are allowed,

And various shapes of things.

Create of airy forms a stream :

It must have blood, and nought of phlegm;
And though it be a waking dream,

Yet let it like an odour rise

To all the Senses here,

And fall like sleep upon their eyes,

Or music in their ear.

I. TO POETS

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?

-Yes: and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon ;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
With the parle of voices thundrous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns

Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large bluebells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, trancèd thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumbered, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,

Double-lived in regions new!

J. KEATS

2. THE SPLENDOUR FALLS

THE splendour falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying;
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
TENNYSON

3.-MADRIGALS

OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

I

THUS saith my Cloris bright,

When we of Love sit down and talk together: "Beware of Love: Love is a walking sprite ; And Love is this and that,

And O! I know not what ;

And comes and goes again I wot not whither." No, no; these are but bugs1 to breed amazing, For in her eyes I saw his torchlight blazing.

ΑΝΟΝ.

1 Bugbears: connected with pouk (Puck) and bogie.