10.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry’d—­“La belle Dame sans merci
  Hath thee in thrall!”

11.

I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
  With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
  On the cold hill-side.

12.

And this is why I sojourn here
  Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
  And no birds sing.

45. Sonnet.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
  Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
  Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
  Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
  Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
  That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
  Of unreflecting love;—­then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Buxton Forman’s Text.

* * * * *

CHARLES LAMB.

46. The Old Familiar Faces.

Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? 
I had a mother, but she died, and left me,
Died prematurely in a day of horrors—­
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days—­
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies—­
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I lov’d a love once, fairest among women;
Clos’d are her doors on me, I must not see her—­
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man. 
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I pac’d round the haunts of my childhood. 
Earth seem’d a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother! 
Why were not thou born in my father’s dwelling? 
So might we talk of the old familiar faces.

For some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

1798 Edition.

* * * * *

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

47. The Maid’s Lament.