Love is to life as perfume to the rose, A sweet unseen enjoyment that doth lend Rapture to beauty--so doth Nature send The harmony of happiness that flows Half-way between hot Passion’s leaps and throes And Apathy, where worn-out feelings end, Throughout the universe, there doth attend Upon all active ordering, repose. O Thou! the fair embodiment of good, Who first within me struck the chord of Love, Necessity of Life! in thee doth move The pure quintessence of pure womanhood, Without thy love my life would be as bare As fairest rose without its perfume rare.
The Saxons fought hard in the fatal fray, O! sing of the battle on Hasting’s shore, When the arrows of Normandy won the day.
Flushed by debauch at the break of day, Their keen-edged axes athirst for gore, The Saxons fought hard in the fatal fray.
Proud soldiers fell down on their knees to pray, Lord! yield us the victory, we implore; When the arrows of Normandy won the day.
King Harold, whose heart never felt dismay, Spake loud of the deeds they had done before; The Saxons fought hard in the fatal fray.
Taillefer the jongleur, sang well his lay And laughed as he flung up the lance he bore, When the arrows of Normandy won the day.
Duke William in England proclaimed his sway; King Harold lay dead; the battle was o’er; The Saxons fought hard in the fatal fray, But the arrows of Normandy won the day.
A bird of song, far soaring to its home, Over the sea-waves cleaves with tireless wing The cloudless blue; but, swiftly gathering, A storm breaks up the crystal into foam That dashes mountain-high ’gainst Heaven’s dome Now darkened. Down the aerial harpies fling The sweet-voiced minstrel and sad surges sing The dirge of death with sorrow burdensome. O Heart of Hearts! high-beating o’er the world From whom fell sweetest song that unto man Told love and life, since life and love began; Like some lone bird thou wert by Nature hurled Into the restless jaws of death’s devouring sea With still a Song of Songs to bear thee company.
The gray of dawn peeps up behind night’s folds, While darkling clouds yet dim the distant sky; Long miles of mist disperse along the wolds, And from the dewy boughs the songsters fly.
The feathered minstrels of the opening day, Refreshed by long and undisturbed repose, Arrange the plumes that night has turned astray, And all their ruffled beauties now disclose.