The Passing Of The Century
How shall we comfort the Dying Year?
Beg him to linger, or bid him go?
The light in his eyes burns dim and low,
His hands are clammy, his pulse beats slow,
He wanders and mumbles, but doth not hear.
The lanes are sodden, the leaf-drifts sere,
And the wrack is weaving his shroud of white.
Do you not see he is weary quite
Of the languor of living, and longs for night?
Lo! He is gone! Now lower him down
In the snug-warm earth, 'neath the clods of brown
And the buds of the winter aconite.
How shall we part with the bygone Year?
Cover with cypress, or wreathe with bay?
He will not heed what you do or say,
He is deaf to to-morrow as yesterday.
Why do you linger about his bier?
He has gone to the Ghostland, he is not here.
We may go on our way, we may live and laugh,
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poem by Alfred Austin
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Poet’s Corner
I stand within the Abbey walls,
Where soft the slanting sunlight falls
In gleams of mellow grace:
The organ swells, the anthem soars,
And waves of prayerful music pours
Throughout the solemn space.
Slowly the chanted yearning dies:
Then spoken supplications rise,
Upfloating to the sky;
The organ peals anew, again
Is silent, and there linger then
Only my soul and I.
But what are these mute busts that gaze
On me from out the vanished days,
And bid me pause and scan
Tablet, inscription, title, date,
All that records the vain estate
Of transitory man?
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poem by Alfred Austin
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The Mountains
The Mountains
What ails you, Ocean, that nor near nor far,
Find you a bourne to ease your burdened breast,
But throughout time inexorable are
Never at rest?
With foaming mouth and fluttering crest you leap
Impatiently towards never-shifting beach,
Then wheel, and hurry to some distant deep
Beyond your reach.
Nor golden sands nor sheltering combes can slake
Your fretful longing for some shore unknown,
And through your shrineless pilgrimage you make
Unending moan.
The Sea
Nimbused by sunlight or enwreathed in snow,
Lonely you stand, and loftily you soar,
While I immeasurably ebb and flow
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poem by Alfred Austin
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The Passing Of The Primroses
Primroses, why do you pass away?
Primroses
Nay, rather, why should we longer stay?
We are not needed, now stooping showers
Have sandalled the feet of May with flowers.
Surely, surely, 'tis time to go,
Now that the splendid bluebells blow,
Scattering a bridal peal, to hail
June blushing under her hawthorn veil.
We abode with you all the long winter through:
You may not have seen us, but we saw you,
Chafing your hands in the beaded haze,
And shivering home to your Yuletide blaze.
Why should we linger, when all things pass?
We have buried old Winter beneath the grass,
Seen the first larch break, heard the first lamb bleat,
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poem by Alfred Austin
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Is Life Worth Living?
Is life worth living? Yes, so long
As Spring revives the year,
And hails us with the cuckoo's song,
To show that she is here;
So long as May of April takes,
In smiles and tears, farewell,
And windflowers dapple all the brakes,
And primroses the dell;
While children in the woodlands yet
Adorn their little laps
With ladysmock and violet,
And daisy-chain their caps;
While over orchard daffodils
Cloud-shadows float and fleet,
And ousel pipes and laverock trills,
And young lambs buck and bleat;
So long as that which bursts the bud
And swells and tunes the rill,
Makes springtime in the maiden's blood,
Life is worth living still.
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poem by Alfred Austin
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Primroses
I
Latest, earliest of the year,
Primroses that still were here,
Snugly nestling round the boles
Of the cut-down chestnut poles,
When December's tottering tread
Rustled 'mong the deep leaves dead,
And with confident young faces
Peeped from out the sheltered places
When pale January lay
In its cradle day by day,
Dead or living, hard to say;
Now that mid-March blows and blusters,
Out you steal in tufts and clusters,
Making leafless lane and wood
Vernal with your hardihood.
Other lovely things are rare,
You are prodigal as fair.
First you come by ones and ones,
Lastly in battalions,
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poem by Alfred Austin
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The Passing Of Spring
Spring came out of the woodland chase,
With her violet eyes and her primrose face,
With an iris scarf for her sole apparel,
And a voice as blithe as a blackbird's carol.
As she flitted by garth and slipped through glade,
Her light limbs winnowed the wind, and made
The gold of the pollened palm to float
On her budding bosom and dimpled throat.
Then, brushing the nut-sweet gorse, she sped
Where the runnel lisps in its reedy bed,
O'er shepherded pasture and crested fallow,
And buskined her thigh with strips of sallow.
By the marigold marsh she paused to twist
The gold-green coils round her blue-veined wrist,
And out of the water-bed scooped the cresses,
And frolicked them round her braidless tresses.
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poem by Alfred Austin
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At San Giovanni Del Lago
I leaned upon the rustic bridge,
And watched the streamlet make
Its chattering way past zigzag ridge
Down to the silent lake.
The sunlight flickered on the wave,
Lay quiet on the hill;
Italian sunshine, bright and brave,
Though 'twas but April still.
I heard the distant shepherd's shout,
I heard the fisher's call;
The lizards glistened in and out,
Along the crannied wall.
Hard-by, in rudely frescoed niche,
Hung Christ upon the tree;
Round Him the Maries knelt, and each
Was weeping bitterly.
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poem by Alfred Austin
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Christmas,1870
Heaven strews the earth with snow,
That neither friend nor foe
May break the sleep of the fast-dying year;
A world arrayed in white,
Late dawns, and shrouded light,
Attest to us once more that Christmas-tide is here.
And yet, and yet I hear
No strains of pious cheer,
No children singing round the Yule-log fire;
No carol's sacred notes,
Warbled by infant throats,
On brooding mother's lap, or knee of pleasèd sire.
Comes with the hallowed time
No sweet accustomed chime,
No peal of bells athwart the midnight air;
No mimes or jocund waits
Within wide-opened gates,
Loud laughter in the hall, or glee of children fair.
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poem by Alfred Austin
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At Vaucluse
By Avignon's dismantled walls,
Where cloudless mid-March sunshine falls,
Rhone, through broad belts of green,
Flecked with the light of almond groves,
Upon itself reverting, roves
Reluctant from the scene.
Yet from stern moat and storied tower,
From sprouting vine, from spreading flower,
My footsteps cannot choose
But turn aside, as though some friend
Were waiting for my voice, and wend
Unto thy vale, Vaucluse!
For here, by Sorgue's sequestered stream,
Did Petrarch fly from fame, and dream
Life's noonday light away;
Here build himself a studious home,
And, careless of the crowns of Rome,
To Laura lend his lay:
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poem by Alfred Austin
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