But, children, at midnight,
      When soft the winds blow;
      When clear falls the moonlight;
      When spring-tides are low: 
      When sweet airs come seaward
      From heaths starr’d with broom;
      And high rocks throw mildly
      On the blanch’d sands a gloom: 
      Up the still, glistening beaches,
      Up the creeks we will hie;
      Over banks of bright seaweed
      The ebb-tide leaves dry. 
      We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
      At the white, sleeping town;
      At the church on the hill-side—­
        And then come back down. 
      Singing, “There dwells a lov’d one,
      But cruel is she. 
      She left lonely for ever
      The kings of the sea.”

1857 Edition.

* * * * *

ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD.

3. Life.

Animula, vagula, blandula.

  Life!  I know not what thou art,
  But know that thou and I must part;
  And when, or how, or where we met,
  I own to me’s a secret yet. 
  But this I know, when thou art fled,
  Where’er they lay these limbs, this head,
  No clod so valueless shall be,
  As all that then remains of me.

  O whither, whither dost thou fly,
  Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
      And in this strange divorce,
Ah tell where I must seek this compound I? 
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
      From whence thy essence came,
      Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
      From matter’s base encumbering weed? 
        Or dost thou, hid from sight,
        Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour,
To break thy trance and reassume thy power? 
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be? 
O say what art thou, when no more thou’rt thee?

  Life! we’ve been long together,
  Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
    ’Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
    Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear;
    Then steal away, give little warning,
        Choose thine own time;
  Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime
        Bid me Good morning.

1825 Edition.

* * * * *

ROBERT BROWNING.

4. Song from “Pippa Passes."

The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn: 
God’s in his heaven—­
All’s right with the world!

5. Song from “Pippa Passes."

You’ll love me yet!—­and I can tarry
  Your love’s protracted growing: 
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry,
  From seeds of April’s sowing.