Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon
I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being pass’d away.—Vain sympathies!
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I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being pass’d away.—Vain sympathies!
WHEN we two parted In silence and tears,
THERE be none of Beauty’s daughters With a magic like thee;
SO, we’ll go no more a-roving So late into the night,
SHE walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
FROM the forests and highlands We come, we come;
I ARISE from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night,
SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night!
MY faint spirit was sitting in the light Of thy looks, my love;
WHEN the lamp is shatter’d, The light in the dust lies dead;
AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon, Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
MUSIC, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory;
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
NO, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
MOTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia! May I sing to thee
BARDS of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth!
IN a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree,
MUCH have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
HELEN, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicèan barks of yore
PASSIONS are liken’d best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
WRONG not, sweet empress of my heart, The merit of true passion,
GIVE me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon,
EVEN such is Time, that takes in trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have,