Ballade Of Autumn
We built a castle in the air,
In summer weather, you and I,
The wind and sun were in your hair, -
Gold hair against a sapphire sky:
When Autumn came, with leaves that fly
Before the storm, across the plain,
You fled from me, with scarce a sigh -
My Love returns no more again!
The windy lights of Autumn flare:
I watch the moonlit sails go by;
I marvel how men toil and fare,
The weary business that they ply!
Their voyaging is vanity,
And fairy gold is all their gain,
And all the winds of winter cry,
'My Love returns no more again!'
Here, in my castle of Despair,
I sit alone with memory;
The wind-fed wolf has left his lair,
To keep the outcast company.
The brooding owl he hoots hard by,
The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane,
The Rhymer's soothest prophecy,--
My Love returns no more again!
ENVOY.
Lady, my home until I die
Is here, where youth and hope were slain:
They flit, the ghosts of our July,
My Love returns no more again!
Ballade Of The Summer Term
When Lent and Responsions are ended,
When May with fritillaries waits,
When the flower of the chestnut is splendid,
When drags are at all of the gates
(Those drags the philosopher 'slates'
With a scorn that is truly sublime),
Life wins from the grasp of the Fates
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
When wickets are bowl'd and defended,
When Isis is glad with 'the Eights,'
When music and sunset are blended,
When Youth and the summer are mates,
When Freshmen are heedless of 'Greats,'
And when note-books are cover'd with rhyme,
Ah, these are the hours that one rates -
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
When the brow of the Dean is unbended
At luncheons and mild tete-a-tetes,
When the Tutor's in love, nor offended
By blunders in tenses or dates;
When bouquets are purchased of Bates,
When the bells in their melody chime,
When unheeded the Lecturer prates -
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
ENVOY.
Reformers of Schools and of States,
Is mirth so tremendous a crime?
Ah! spare what grim pedantry hates -
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
