Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Download links will be available after you disable the ad blocker and reload the page.

The Earthly Paradise A Poem



Download options:

  • 336.49 KB
  • 171.68 KB
  • 412.22 KB

Description:

Excerpt


MAY.

O love, this morn when the sweet nightingaleHad so long finished all he had to say,That thou hadst slept, and sleep had told his tale;And midst a peaceful dream had stolen awayIn fragrant dawning of the first of May,Didst thou see aught? didst thou hear voices singEre to the risen sun the bells 'gan ring?For then methought the Lord of Love went byTo take possession of his flowery throne,Ringed round with maids, and youths, and minstrelsy;A little while I sighed to find him gone,A little while the dawning was alone,And the light gathered; then I held my breath,And shuddered at the sight of Eld and Death.Alas! Love passed me in the twilight dun,His music hushed the wakening ousel's song;But on these twain shone out the golden sun,And o'er their heads the brown bird's tune was strong,As shivering, twixt the trees they stole along;None noted aught their noiseless passing by,The world had quite forgotten it must die.

 

 

Now must these men be glad a little whileThat they had lived to see May once more smileUpon the earth; wherefore, as men who knowHow fast the bad days and the good days go,They gathered at the feast: the fair abodeWherein they sat, o'erlooked, across the roadUnhedged green meads, which willowy streams passed through,And on that morn, before the fresh May dewHad dried upon the sunniest spot of grass,From bush to bush did youths and maidens passIn raiment meet for May apparelled,Gathering the milk-white blossoms and the red;And now, with noon long past, and that bright dayGrowing aweary, on the sunny wayThey wandered, crowned with flowers, and loitering,And weary, yet were fresh enough to singThe carols of the morn, and pensive, stillHad cast away their doubt of death and ill,And flushed with love, no more grew red with shame.So to the elders as they sat, there came,With scent of flowers, the murmur of that folkWherethrough from time to time a song outbroke,Till scarce they thought about the story due;Yet, when anigh to sun-setting it grew,A book upon the board an elder laid,And turning from the open window said,"Too fair a tale the lovely time doth ask,For this of mine to be an easy task,Yet in what words soever this is writ,As for the matter, I dare say of itThat it is lovely as the lovely May;Pass then the manner, since the learned sayNo written record was there of the tale,Ere we from our fair land of Greece set sail;How this may be I know not, this I knowThat such-like tales the wind would seem to blowFrom place to place, e'en as the feathery seedIs borne across the sea to help the needOf barren isles; so, sirs, from seed thus sown,This flower, a gift from other lands has grown.

 

 


THE STORY OF CUPID AND PSYCHE. ARGUMENT.

Psyche, a king's daughter, by her exceeding beauty caused the people to forget Venus; therefore the goddess would fain have destroyed her: nevertheless she became the bride of Love, yet in an unhappy moment lost him by her own fault, and wandering through the world suffered many evils at the hands of Venus, for whom she must accomplish fearful tasks....