Rhymes a la Mode - Andrew Lang 2 стр.

The call of homing rooks, the shrill
   Song of some bird that watches late,
The cries of children break the still
   Sad twilight by the churchyard gate.

And oer your far-off tomb the grey
   Sad twilight broods, and from the trees
The rooks call on their homeward way,
   And are you heedless quite of these?

The clustered rowan berries red
   And Autumns may, the clematis,
They droop above your dreaming head,
   And these, and all things must you miss?

Ah, you that loved the twilight air,
   The dim lit hour of quiet best,
At last, at last you have your share
   Of what life gave so seldom, rest!

Yes, rest beyond all dreaming deep,
   Or labour, nearer the Divine,
And pure from fret, and smooth as sleep,
   And gentle as thy soul, is thine!

So let it be!  But could I know
   That thou in this soft autumn eve,
This hush of earth that pleased thee so,
   Hadst pleasure still, I might not grieve.

Our youth began with tears and sighs,
With seeking what we could not find;
Our verses all were threnodies,
In elegiacs still we whined;
Our ears were deaf, our eyes were blind,
We sought and knew not what we sought.
We marvel, now we look behind:
Lifes more amusing than we thought!

Oh, foolish youth, untimely wise!
Oh, phantoms of the sickly mind!
What? not content with seas and skies,
With rainy clouds and southern wind,
With common cares and faces kind,
With pains and joys each morning brought?
Ah, old, and worn, and tired we find
Lifes more amusing than we thought!

Though youth turns spectre-thin and dies,
To mourn for youth were not inclined;
We set our souls on salmon flies,
We whistle where we once repined.
Confound the woes of human-kind!
By Heaven were well deceived, I wot;
Who hum, contented or resigned,
Lifes more amusing than we thought!

O nate mecum, worn and lined
Our faces show, but that is naught;
Our hearts are young neath wrinkled rind:
Lifes more amusing than we thought!

Just one cast more! how many a year
   Beside how many a pool and stream,
Beneath the falling leaves and sere,
   Ive sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream!

Dreamed of the sport since April first
   Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow,
Adown the pastoral valleys burst
   Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.

Dreamed of the singing showers that break,
   And sting the lochs, or near or far,
And rouse the trout, and stir the take
   From Urigil to Lochinvar.

Dreamed of the kind propitious sky
   Oer Ari Innes brooding grey;
The sea trout, rushing at the fly,
   Breaks the black wave with sudden spray!

Brief are mans days at best; perchance
   I waste my own, who have not seen
The castled palaces of France
   Shine on the Loire in summer green.

And clear and fleet Eurotas still,
   You tell me, laves his reedy shore,
And flows beneath his fabled hill
   Where Dian drave the chase of yore.

And like a horse unbroken yet
   The yellow stream with rush and foam,
Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet,
   Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!

I may not see them, but I doubt
   If seen Id find them half so fair
As ripples of the rising trout
   That feed beneath the elms of Yair.

Nay, Spring Id meet by Tweed or Ail,
   And Summer by Loch Assynts deep,
And Autumn in that lonely vale
   Where wedded Avons westward sweep,

Or where, amid the empty fields,
   Among the bracken of the glen,
Her yellow wreath October yields,
   To crown the crystal brows of Ken.

Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal,
   Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide,
You never heard the ringing reel,
   The music of the water side!

Though Gods have walked your woods among,
   Though nymphs have fled your banks along;
You speak not that familiar tongue
   Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.

My cradle song,  nor other hymn
   Id choose, nor gentler requiem dear
Than Tweeds, that through deaths twilight dim,
   Mourned in the latest Minstrels ear!

Light has flown!
Through the grey
The winds way
The seas moan
Sound alone!
   For the day
   These repay
And atone!

Scarce I know,
Listening so
   To the streams
      Of the sea,
   If old dreams
      Sing to me!

When strawberry pottles are common and cheap,
Ere elms be black, or limes be sere,
When midnight dances are murdering sleep,
Then comes in the sweet o the year!
And far from Fleet Street, far from here,
The Summer is Queen in the length of the land,
And moonlit nights they are soft and clear,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

When clamour that doves in the lindens keep
Mingles with musical plash of the weir,
Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep,
Then comes in the sweet o the year!
And better a crust and a beaker of beer,
With rose-hung hedges on either hand,
Than a palace in town and a princes cheer,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

When big trout late in the twilight leap,
When cuckoo clamoureth far and near,
When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap,
Then comes in the sweet o the year!
And its oh to sail, with the wind to steer,
Where kine knee deep in the water stand,
On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere,