Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
O SORROW! | |
Why dost borrow | |
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?— | |
To give maiden blushes | |
To the white rose bushes? | 5 |
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? | |
|
O Sorrow! | |
Why dost borrow | |
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?— | |
To give the glow-worm light? | 10 |
Or, on a moonless night, | |
To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea-spry? | |
|
O Sorrow! | |
Why dost borrow | |
The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?— | 15 |
To give at evening pale | |
Unto the nightingale, | |
That thou mayst listen the cold dews among? | |
|
O Sorrow! | |
Why dost borrow | 20 |
Heart’s lightness from the merriment of May?— | |
A lover would not tread | |
A cowslip on the head, | |
Though he should dance from eve till peep of day— | |
Nor any drooping flower | 25 |
Held sacred for thy bower, | |
Wherever he may sport himself and play. | |
|
To Sorrow | |
I bade good morrow, | |
And thought to leave her far away behind; | 30 |
But cheerly, cheerly, | |
She loves me dearly; | |
She is so constant to me, and so kind: | |
I would deceive her | |
And so leave her, | 35 |
But ah! she is so constant and so kind. | |
|
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side, | |
I sat a-weeping: in the whole world wide | |
There was no one to ask me why I wept,— | |
And so I kept | 40 |
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears | |
Cold as my fears. | |
|
Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side, | |
I sat a-weeping: what enamour’d bride, | |
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds, | 45 |
But hides and shrouds | |
Beneath dark palm-trees by a river side? | |
|
And as I sat, over the light blue hills | |
There came a noise of revellers: the rills | |
Into the wide stream came of purple hue— | 50 |
‘Twas Bacchus and his crew! | |
The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills | |
From kissing cymbals made a merry din— | |
‘Twas Bacchus and his kin! | |
Like to a moving vintage down they came, | 55 |
Crown’d with green leaves, and faces all on flame; | |
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley, | |
To scare thee, Melancholy! | |
O then, O then, thou wast a simple name! | |
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly | 60 |
By shepherds is forgotten, when in June | |
Tall chestnuts keep away the sun and moon:— | |
I rush’d into the folly! | |
|
Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, | |
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, | 65 |
With sidelong laughing; | |
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued | |
His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white | |
For Venus’ pearly bite; | |
And near him rode Silenus on his ass, | 70 |
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass | |
Tipsily quaffing. | |
|
‘Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye, | |
So many, and so many, and such glee? | |
Why have ye left your bowers desolate, | 75 |
Your lutes, and gentler fate?’— | |
‘We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing, | |
A-conquering! | |
Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide, | |
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide:— | 80 |
Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be | |
To our wild minstrelsy!’ | |
|
‘Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye, | |
So many, and so many, and such glee? | |
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left | 85 |
Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?’— | |
‘For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; | |
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms, | |
And cold mushrooms; | |
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; | 90 |
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth! | |
Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be | |
To our mad minstrelsy!’ | |
|
Over wide streams and mountains great we went, | |
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, | 95 |
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants, | |
With Asian elephants: | |
Onward these myriads—with song and dance, | |
With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians’ prance, | |
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, | 100 |
Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, | |
Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil | |
Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers’ toil: | |
With toying oars and silken sails they glide, | |
Nor care for wind and tide. | 105 |
|
Mounted on panthers’ furs and lions’ manes, | |
From rear to van they scour about the plains; | |
A three days’ journey in a moment done; | |
And always, at the rising of the sun, | |
About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn, | 110 |
On spleenful unicorn. | |
|
I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown | |
Before the vine-wreath crown! | |
I saw parch’d Abyssinia rouse and sing | |
To the silver cymbals’ ring! | 115 |
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce | |
Old Tartary the fierce! | |
The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail, | |
And from their treasures scatter pearlèd hail; | |
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans, | 120 |
And all his priesthood moans, | |
Before young Bacchus’ eye-wink turning pale. | |
Into these regions came I, following him, | |
Sick-hearted, weary—so I took a whim | |
To stray away into these forests drear, | 125 |
Alone, without a peer: | |
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear. | |
|
Young Stranger! | |
I’ve been a ranger | |
In search of pleasure throughout every clime; | 130 |
Alas! ’tis not for me! | |
Bewitch’d I sure must be, | |
To lose in grieving all my maiden prime. | |
|
Come then, Sorrow, | |
Sweetest Sorrow! | 135 |
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast: | |
I thought to leave thee, | |
And deceive thee, | |
But now of all the world I love thee best. | |
|
There is not one, | 140 |
No, no, not one | |
But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid; | |
Thou art her mother, | |
And her brother, | |
Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade. | 145 |