In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled and wrought and thought with
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads, you and I are old.
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
"Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and, sitting well in order, smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
BREAK, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven1 under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
[From In Memoriam. See introductory sketch.]
RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying2 in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
1 haven. Give a synonym. I 2 is dying, etc. Explain.
Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him1 go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor;
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel3 in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right;
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old;
Ring in the thousand years of peace.1
1 him. Note the personification.
4 thousand years of peace, the millennium.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land;
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
5. - CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.
[The following spirited lyric commemorates a famous exploit of a portion of the British army during one of the most famous actions of the Crimean War. It will be noted that the galloping dactylic movement of the verse is specially suited to the description of the action.]
HALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed? 2
Not though the soldiers knew
Some one had blundered!
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
1 the guns: that is, the batteries of the Russians.
2 dismayed. Give a synonym. 3 Not, etc. Supply the ellipsis.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode, and well;
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabers bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sabering the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke, Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the saber-stroke,
Shattered and sundered.
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