Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember’d kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

89. Song from ’The Princess.’

Ask me no more:  the moon may draw the sea;
  The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape
  With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer’d thee? 
                      Ask me no more.

Ask me no more:  what answer should I give? 
  I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: 
  Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
                      Ask me no more.

Ask me no more:  thy fate and mine are seal’d: 
  I strove against the stream and all in vain: 
  Let the great river take me to the main: 
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
                      Ask me no more.

90. Crossing the Bar.

Sunset and evening star,
  And one clear call for me! 
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
  When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
  Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
  Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
  And after that the dark! 
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
  When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
  The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
  When I have crost the bar.

1902 Edition.

* * * * *

EDMUND WALLER.

91. On a Girdle.

That which her slender waist confined,
Shall now my joyful temples bind: 
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer. 
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move!

A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that’s good, and all that’s fair: 
Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.

92. Song.

      Go, lovely Rose! 
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
      That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

      Tell her that’s young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
      That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.