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قراءة كتاب The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3: Sorrow and Consolation
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
class="i2">You are not one to be desired.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
I know you proud to bear your name; Your pride is yet no mate for mine,
Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake
A heart that dotes on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower
Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
Some meeker pupil you must find, For were you queen of all that is,
I could not stoop to such a mind. You sought to prove how I could love,
And my disdain is my reply. The lion on your old stone gates
Is not more cold to you than I.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching lines have blown
Since I beheld young Laurence dead. O your sweet eyes, your low replies:
A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind,
She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed I heard one bitter word
That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door:
You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fixed a vacant stare,
And slew him with your noble birth.
Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'T is only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:
You pine among your halls and towers: The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time,
You needs must play such pranks as these.
Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,
If Time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate.
Nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read,
Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a human heart,
And let the foolish yeoman go.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
FROM "THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS."
"How sweetly," said the trembling maid,
Of her own gentle voice afraid,
So long had they in silence stood,
Looking upon that moonlight flood,—
"How sweetly does the moonbeam smile
To-night upon yon leafy isle!
Oft in my fancy's wanderings,
I've wished that little isle had wings,
And we, within its fairy bowers,
Were wafted off to seas unknown, Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
And we might live, love, die alone! Far from the cruel and the cold,—
Where the bright eyes of angels only Should come around us, to behold
A paradise so pure and lonely! Would this be world enough for thee?"—
Playful she turned, that he might see
The passing smile her cheek put on; But when she marked how mournfully
His eyes met hers, that smile was gone; And, bursting into heartfelt tears,
"Yes, yes," she cried, "my hourly fears,
My dreams, have boded all too right,—
We part—forever part—to-night!
I knew, I knew it could not last,—
'T was bright, 't was heavenly, but 't is past!
O, ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower
But 't was the first to fade away. I never nursed a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die! Now, too, the joy most like divine
Of all I ever dreamt or knew, To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,—
O misery! must I lose that too?"
THOMAS MOORE.