If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

Lord Byron

Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity ;
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them,
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

CXCII

WHE

THERE shall the lover rest

Whom the fates sever From his true maiden's breast

Parted for ever? Where, through groves deep and high

Sounds the far billow,
Where early violets die
Under the willow.

Eleu loro
Soft shall be his pillow.

There, through the summer day

Cool streams are laving : There, while the tempests sway,

Scarce are boughs waving ; There thy rest shalt thou take,

Parted for ever,
Never again to wake
Never, O never !

Eleu loro
Never, O never !

Where shall the traitor rest,

He, the deceiver,
Who could win maiden's breast,

Ruin, and leave her?
In the lost battle,

Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying ;

Eleu loro
There shall he be lying.

Her wing shall the eagle flap

O'er the false-hearted ;
His warm blood the wolf shall lap

Ere life be parted :
Shame and dishonour sit

By his grave ever ;
Blessing shall hallow it
Never, O never !

Eleu loro
Never, O never !

Sir W. Scott

CXCIII

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

‘O

WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering ? The sedge has wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone ? The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest 's done.

'I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.'

'I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful — a fairy's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

'I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone ; She look'd at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan,

'I set her on my pacing steed

And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A fairy's song.

6

"She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said

“I love thee true.”

‘She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

"And there she lulléd me asleep,

And there I dream'd— Ah! woe betide ! The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill's side.

'I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all ; They cried — “La belle Dame sans Merci

Hath thee in thrall !”

'I saw their starved lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gapéd wide, And I awoke and found me here

On the cold hill's side.