Robert Bridges - Bramble Brae

But there are closer ties than these that bind me
And make me long to stay
And linger in the dusk where Death may find me
On Thine own chosen day;
There’s one who walks beside me in the gloaming
And holds my faltering hand—
Without her guidance I can make no homing
In any distant land.

Some day when we are tired, like children playing,
And wearied drop our toys—
When all the work and burden of our staying
Has mingled with our joys—
With those we love around—our eyelids drooping,
Too spent with toil to weep—
Like some kind nurse o’er drowsy children stooping,
Lord, take us home to sleep!

Like the uncounted years of God it rolls
From out the sky. The light of heaven shines
Upon its wrinkled brow, that seems a part
Of that stupendous dome of boundless blue
Where, like a pebble in the ocean depths,
This little world is lost. The sparkling sun
Plays gently in the deep green, icy clefts
Like moonlight in the tender eyes of one
Who looks to heaven to find her lover’s face.
Silent, serene, implacable it stands—
A mighty symbol of the Force that moved
Across the surface of the youthful earth
And scored the continents with valleys deep,
As children write upon the yielding sand.
Back to the dawn of things its lineage runs—
Countless ages back to that bleak time
When frightful monsters played upon the hills—
Always the same, yet moving slowly onward,
In heaven its head, its feet upon the world.
The Rhone that trickles from the glacier’s edge—
Makes valleys smile with grain and flower and fruit
And turns the wheels that forge the tools of trade—
Is but the lash with which the giant plays
And spins the tops that swarm with struggling men.
“What is Man, that Thou art mindful of him?”—
This pleasure or this pain, this wealth or want,
This tragic comedy we call our life!

Across the meadows as the evening falls
A shepherd drives his sheep, and fondly bears
Above the rocky stream the weakling lamb;
The children hear the father’s kindly voice
And run to greet and cheer his late return,
While from his humble cottage gleams a light.

The sheep are nestled in their sheltering fold—
The door springs open to a welcome cry,
And all at last are safe within the Home.

In cold and awful majesty it stands
Against the darkening sky,—Force without warmth,
Strength without passion.
But at the touch
Of homely human ways its terrors flee
And Force is swallowed up in Life with Love.

Young to the end through sympathy with youth,
Gray man of learning—champion of truth!
Direct in rugged speech, alert in mind,
He felt his kinship with all humankind,
And never feared to trace development
Of high from low—assured and full content
That man paid homage to the Mind above,
Uplifted by the “Royal Law of Love.”

The laws of nature that he loved to trace
Have worked, at last, to veil from us his face;
The dear old elms and ivy-covered walls
Will miss his presence, and the stately halls
His trumpet-voice; while in their joys
Sorrow will shadow those he called “my boys”!

Avoir une maiſon commode, propre & belle,
Un jardin tapiſſé d’eſpaliers odorans,
Des fruits, d’excellent vin, peu de train, peu d’enfans,
Poſſeder ſeul, ſans bruit, une fe mme fidéle.
N’avoir dettes, amour, ni procés, ni querelle,
Ni de partage à faire avecque ſes parens,
Se contenter de peu, n’eſpérer rien des Grands,
Régler tous ſes deſſeins sur un juſte modéle.

Vivre avecque franchiſe & ſans ambition,
S’adonner ſans ſcrupule à la dévotion,
Domter ſes paſſions, les rendre obéiſſantes.
Conſerver l’eſprit libre, & le jugement fort,
Dire ſon Chapelet en cultivant ſes entes,
C’eſt attendre chez ſoi bien doucement la mort.

To have a home, convenient for thy life,
With fragrant fruit-walls in a garden fine,
Some children, some retainers, and rare wine;
To live serenely with thy faithful wife;
To have no debts, nor quarrels, nor legal strife,
Nor separation from dear kin of thine;
Expecting nothing from the Great, to shine
With modest light and just, where greed is rife.