PROLOGUE 104 "A prologue!" I made answer; "if you need one, In every street and square your Grace may read one." "Cruel Papa! don't talk about Sir Harry!". So Araminta lisped; - "I'll never marry; I loathe all men; such unromantic creatures! The coarsest tastes, and ah! the coarsest features! Betty! the salts! I'm sick with mere vexa tion, II To hear them called the Lords of the Creation: They swear fierce oaths, they seldom say their prayers; And then, they shed no tears, bears! - unfeeling I, and the friend I share my sorrows with, Will weep together through the world's disasters, Masters, And hand in hand repose at last in death, 20 "Frederic is poor, I own it." Fanny sighs, "But then he loves me, and has deep blue eyes. But lo! where Laura, with a frenzied air, Dreaming a dream to prize, If there are ghosts to raise, Know'st thou not ghosts to sue, No love thou hast. And breathe thy last. Thus are the ghosts to woo; Thus are all dreams made true, Ever to last! FROM DEATH'S JEST-BOOK SONG Old Adam, the carrion crow, The old crow of Cairo; He sat in the shower, and let it flow And the bough swung under his nest; Is that the wind dying? O no; It's only two devils, that blow "He giveth His beloved sleep." 12 18 24 For me, my heart that erst did go when it shall be And, friends, dear friends, FROM COWPER'S GRAVE 42 48 It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying. It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying: Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low as silence languish! Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish. 4 O poets! from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing! O Christians! at your cross of hope, a hopeless hand was clinging! O men! this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace and died while ye were smiling! 8 And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, the glory, wandering lights departed, How discord on the music fell, and darkness on And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds and 30 He wore no less a loving face because so brokenhearted; 12 PERPLEXED MUSIC Experience, like a pale musician holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand Of God's will in His worlds, the strain unfolds In sad perplexèd minors. Deathly colds SWEET. WORK II What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil TO GEORGE SAND A RECOGNITION True genius, but true woman! dost deny Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn: Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore, ΙΟ 8 12 16 20 24 28 |