Sing lullaby, as women do, Wherewith they bring their babes to rest, And lullaby can I sing too As womanly as can the best. With lullaby they still the child, And if I be not much beguiled, Full many wanton babes have I Which must be stilled with lullaby.
First lullaby my youthful years; It is now time to go to bed, For crooked age and hoary hairs Have won the haven within my head. With lullaby, then, youth be still; With lullaby content thy will;
Beloved beauty who inspires love in me from afar, your face obscured except when your celestial image stirs my heart in sleep, or in the fields where light and nature's laughter shine more lovely— was it maybe you who blessed the innocent age called golden, and do you now, blithe spirit,
But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly? Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love! I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual, and it seems As if—forgive now—should you let me sit Here by the window with your hand in mine And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
I struck the board, and cried, "No more; I will abroad! What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free, free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn Before my tears did drown it. Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it, No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnal face. Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape, This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape. If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame; Affection here takes reverence's name. Were her first years the golden age? That's true, But now she's gold oft tried and ever new. That was her torrid and inflaming time, This is her tolerable tropic clime. Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence, He in a fever wishes pestilence. Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were, They were Love's graves, for else he is no where. Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit
Hence vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred, How little you bested, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys; Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, Or likest hovering dreams, The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. But hail thou goddess, sage and holy, Hail divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight; And therefore to our weaker view,
I had eight birds hatcht in one nest, Four Cocks were there, and Hens the rest. I nurst them up with pain and care, No cost nor labour did I spare Till at the last they felt their wing, Mounted the Trees and learned to sing. Chief of the Brood then took his flight To Regions far and left me quite. My mournful chirps I after send Till he return, or I do end. Leave not thy nest, thy Dame and Sire, Fly back and sing amidst this Quire. My second bird did take her flight And with her mate flew out of sight. Southward they both their course did bend,
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''
Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall?" Not that, admiring stars, It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"
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