Red ash of the dark solstice, you see the anglers,
Intent, hieratic, primeval,
Like the priests of the people that built Stonehenge,
Dark silent forms, performing
Remote solemnities in the red shallows
Of the river's mouth at the year's turn,
Drawing landward their live bullion; the bloody mouths
And scales full of the sunset
Twitch on the rocks, no more to wander at will
The wild Pacific pasture nor, wanton and spawning, Race up into fresh water.
ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CANARY
Poor Matthias! Wouldst thou have
More than pity? claim'st a stave?
-Friends more near us than a bird
We dismiss'd without a word.
Rover with the good brown head,
Great Atossa, they are dead;
Dead, and neither prose nor rhyme
Tells the praises of their prime.
Thou didst know them old and gray,
Know them in their sad decay.
Thou hast seen Atossa sage
Sit for hours beside thy cage;
Thou wouldst chirp, thou foolish bird,
Flutter, chirp-she never stirr'd!
What were now these toys to her?
Down she sank amid her fur;
Eyed thee with a soul resign'd-
And thou deemedst cats were kind!
-Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand,
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat.
Birds, companions more unknown,
Live beside us, but alone;
Finding not, do all they can,
Passage from their souls to man.
Kindness we bestow, and praise,
Laud their plumage, greet their lays;
Still, beneath their feather'd breast,
Stirs a history unexpress'd.
Wishes there, and feelings strong,
Incommunicably throng;
What they want we cannot guess,
Fail to track their deep distress-
Dull look on when death is nigh,
Note no change, and let them die.
Was it, as the Grecian sings,
Birds were born the first of things,
Before the sun, before the wind,
Before the gods, before mankind,
Airy, ante-mundane throng-
Witness their unworldly song!
Proof they give too, primal powers,
Of a prescience more than ours—
Teach us, while they come and go,
When to sail and when to sow.
Cuckoo calling from the hill,
Swallow skimming by the mill,
Swallows trooping in the sedge,
Starlings swirling from the hedge,
Mark the seasons, map our year,
As they show and disappear.
But, with all this travail sage
Brought from that anterior age,
Goes an unreversed decree
Whereby strange are they and we,
Making want of theirs, and plan,
Indiscernible by man.
From THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
And I bless'd them unaware. . .
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
TO SAFEGUARD THE HEART
FROM HARDNESS
I steadfastly will,
I firmly command my heart,
That when next I feel the leaden cooling of friendliness
and pity within me,
Into my memory shall run
The thought of the child I love best,
Undressed and ready for bed,
Or hiding behind the door,
And cautiously peeping out;
Or stubbing his toe and falling,
And crying a little and climbing up on my lap,
To hear the story of the Three Bears over again.
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue-
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.
My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
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