With his faith in the Great Mother's love:
O the joy of the breath she sustains,

And the lyre of the light above,
And the first rapt vision of Good,

And the fresh young sense of Sweet:
That song the youth ever pursued

In the track of her footing fleet.
For men to be profited much

By her day upon earth did he sing:
Of her voice, and her steps, and her touch

On the blossoms of tender Spring,
Immortal: and how in her soul

She is with them, and tearless abides,
Folding grain of a love for one goal

In patience, past flowing of tides.
And if unto him she was tears,

He wept not: he wasted within:
Seeming sane in the song, to his peers,

Only crazed where the cravings begin.
Our Lady of Gifts prized he less

Than her issue in darkness: the dim
Lost Skiegencia's caress

Of our earth made it richest for him.
And for that was a curse on him raised,

And he withered rathe, dry to his prime,
Though the bounteous Giver be praised

Through the island with rites of old time
Exceedingly fervent, and reaped

Veneration for teachings devout,
Pious hymns when the corn-sheaves are heaped

And the wine-presses ruddily spout,
And the olive and apple are juice

At a touch light as hers lost below.
Whatsoever to men is of use

Sprang his worship of them who bestow,
In a measure of songs unexcelled:

But that soul loving earth and the sun
From her home of the shadows he held

For his beacon where beam there is none:
And to join her, or have her brought back,

In his frenzy the singer would call,
Till he followed where never was track,

On the path trod of all.
THE LARK ASCENDING

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,

Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,

All intervolved and spreading wide,
Like water-dimples down a tide

Where rippleripple overcurls
And eddy into eddy whirls;

A press of hurried notes that run
So fleet they scarce are more than one,

Yet changeingly the trills repeat
And linger ringing while they fleet,

Sweet to the quick o' the ear, and dear
To her beyond the handmaid ear,

Who sits beside our inner springs,
Too often dry for this he brings,

Which seems the very jet of earth
At sight of sun, her music's mirth,

As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, and pierces air

With fountainardour, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops of day,

And drink in everything discerned
An ecstasy to music turned,

Impelled by what his happy bill
Disperses; drinking, showering still,

Unthinking save that he may give
His voice the outlet, there to live

Renewed in endless notes of glee,
So thirsty of his voice is he,

For all to hear and all to know
That he is joy, awake, aglow;

The tumult of the heart to hear
Through pureness filtered crystal-clear,

And know the pleasure sprinkled bright
By simple singing of delight;

Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained,
Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained

Without a break, without a fall,
Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,

Perennial, quavering up the chord
Like myriad dews of sunny sward

That trembling into fulness shine,
And sparkle dropping argentine;

Such wooing as the ear receives
From zephyr caught in choric leaves

Of aspens when their chattering net
Is flushed to white with shivers wet;

And such the water-spirit's chime
On mountain heights in morning's prime,

Too freshly sweet to seem excess,
Too animate to need a stress;

But wider over many heads
The starry voice ascending spreads,

Awakening, as it waxes thin,
The best in us to him akin;

And every face to watch him raised,
Puts on the light of children praised;

So rich our human pleasure ripes
When sweetness on sincereness pipes,

Though nought be promised from the seas,
But only a soft-ruffling breeze

Sweep glittering on a still content,
Serenity in ravishment

For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instils,

And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,

And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:

The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine,
He is, the hills, the human line,

The meadows green, the fallows brown,
The dreams of labour in the town;

He sings the sap, the quickened veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains

He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,

And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe,

And you shall hear the herb and tree,
The better heart of men shall see,

Shall feel celestially, as long
As you crave nothing save the song.

Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way,

Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink.

Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,
Our passion is too full in flood,

We want the key of his wild note
Of truthful in a tuneful throat;

The song seraphically free
Of taint of personality,

So pure that it salutes the suns
The voice of one for millions,

In whom the millions rejoice
For giving their one spirit voice.

Yet men have we, whom we revere,
Now names, and men still housing here,

Whose lives, by many a battle-dint
Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,

Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet
For song our highest heaven to greet:

Whom heavenly singing gives us new,
Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,

From firmest base to farthest leap,
Because their love of Earth is deep,

And they are warriors in accord
With life to serve, and, pass reward,

So touching purest and so heard
In the brain's reflex of yon bird:

Wherefore their soul in me, or mine,
Through self-forgetfulness divine,

In them, that song aloft maintains,
To fill the sky and thrill the plains

With showerings drawn from human stores,
As he to silence nearer soars,

Extends the world at wings and dome,
More spacious making more our home,

Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

PHOEBUS WITH ADMETUS
I

When by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked,
Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God,

Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked,
Who: and what a track showed the upturned sod!

Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe
Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide,

How the rustic flute drew the silver to the sphere,
Sister of his own, till her rays fell wide.

God! of whom music
And song and blood are pure,

The day is never darkened
That had thee here obscure.

II
Chirping none, the scarlet cicadas crouched in ranks:

Slack the thistle-head piled its down-silk grey:
Scarce the stony lizard sucked hollows in his flanks:

Thick on spots of umbrage our drowsed flocks lay.
Sudden bowed the chestnuts beneath a wind unheard,

Lengthened ran the grasses, the sky grew slate:
Then amid a swift flight of winged seed white as curd,

Clear of limb a Youth smote the master's gate.
God! of whom music

And song and blood are pure,
The day is never darkened

That had thee here obscure.
III

Water, first of singers, o'er rocky mount and mead,
First of earthlysingers, the sun-loved rill,

Sang of him, and flooded the ripples on the reed,
Seeking whom to waken and what ear fill.

Water, sweetest soother to kiss a wound and cool,
Sweetest and divinest, the sky-born brook,

Chuckled, with a whimper, and made a mirror-pool

• breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
• vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
• patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
• worship [´wə:ʃip] n.&v.崇拜；敬仰 (初中英语单词)
• measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
• singer [´siŋə] n.歌手，演唱者 (初中英语单词)
• whistle [´wisəl] v.吹哨 n.口哨；汽笛 (初中英语单词)
• scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
• linger [´liŋgə] v.逗留；留恋；拖延 (初中英语单词)
• fountain [´fauntin] n.泉水；源泉；根源 (初中英语单词)
• sparkle [´spɑ:kəl] vi.闪耀；焕发 n.火花 (初中英语单词)
• valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
• wedding [´wediŋ] n.婚礼，结婚 (初中英语单词)
• wisdom [´wizdəm] n.智慧，聪明，才智 (初中英语单词)
• passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
• brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
• thrill [θril] v.震惊；激动；刺激 (初中英语单词)
• scarlet [´skɑ:lit] n.猩红色 a.猩红的 (初中英语单词)
• flight [flait] n.逃走；飞行；班机 (初中英语单词)
• winged [´wiŋd] a.有翼的 (初中英语单词)
• loving [´lʌviŋ] a.爱的，有爱情的 (高中英语单词)
• ripple [´ripəl] n.涟漪 v.(使)起涟漪 (高中英语单词)
• hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
• ecstasy [´ekstəsi] n.狂喜；出神，入迷 (高中英语单词)
• outlet [´autlet] n.出口；出路；通风口 (高中英语单词)
• tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
• sweetness [´swi:tnis] n.甜蜜；芳香；亲切 (高中英语单词)
• heavenly [´hevənli] a.天的，天空的 (高中英语单词)
• spacious [´speiʃəs] a.广阔的，宽敞的 (高中英语单词)
• eyebrow [´aibrau] n.眉 (高中英语单词)
• rustic [´rʌstik] a.田野的；质朴的 (高中英语单词)
• earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
• frenzy [´frenzi] n.&vt.(使)狂乱 (英语四级单词)
• spiral [´spaiərəl] a.螺纹的 n.螺旋(管) (英语四级单词)
• ardour [´ɑ:də] n.热心，热情 (英语四级单词)
• myriad [´miriəd] n.极大数量 a.无数的 (英语四级单词)
• freshly [´freʃli] ad.新近，刚才 (英语四级单词)
• starry [´stɑ:ri] a.星光照耀的，闪亮的 (英语四级单词)
• nought [nɔ:t] n.=naught (英语四级单词)
• farthest [´fɑ:ðist] ad.&a.最远(的) (英语四级单词)
• touching [´tʌtʃiŋ] a.动人的 prep.提到 (英语四级单词)
• aerial [´eəriəl] a.空中的 n.天线 (英语四级单词)
• lizard [´lizəd] n.蜥 (英语四级单词)
• footing [´futiŋ] n.立脚点；基础；地位 (英语六级单词)
• bounteous [´bauntiəs] a.宽宏大量的；丰富的 (英语六级单词)
• fervent [´fə:vənt] a.强烈的；热情的 (英语六级单词)
• beacon [´bi:kən] n.灯塔；信标 v.照亮 (英语六级单词)
• animate [´ænimit, ´ænimeit] vt.使有生气；激励 (英语六级单词)
• truthful [´tru:θfəl] a.诚实的；真实的 (英语六级单词)
• mandate [´mændeit] n.训令；委任 vt.托管 (英语六级单词)
• whimper [´wimpə] v.&n.啜泣(声) (英语六级单词)