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Algernon Charles Swinburne - A Jacobite`s ExileAlgernon Charles Swinburne - A Jacobite`s Exile
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  The weary day runs down and dies,     The weary night wears through:   And never an hour is fair wi` flower,     And never a flower wi` dew.   I would the day were night for me,     I would the night were day:   For then would I stand in my ain fair land,     As now in dreams I may.   O lordly flow the Loire and Seine,     And loud the dark Durance:   But bonnier shine the braes of Tyne     Than a` the fields of France;   And the waves of Till that speak sae still     Gleam goodlier where they glance.   O weel were they that fell fighting     On dark Drumossie`s day:   They keep their hame ayont the faem     And we die far away.   O sound they sleep, and saft, and deep,     But night and day wake we;   And ever between the sea banks green     Sounds loud the sundering sea.   And ill we sleep, sae sair we weep     But sweet and fast sleep they:   And the mool that haps them roun` and laps them     Is e`en their country`s clay;   But the land we tread that are not dead     Is strange as night by day.   Strange as night in a strange man`s sight,     Though fair as dawn it be:   For what is here that a stranger`s cheer     Should yet wax blithe to see?   The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep,     The fields are green and gold:   The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring,     As ours at home of old.   But hills and flowers are nane of ours,     And ours are over sea:   And the kind strange land whereon we stand,     It wotsna what were we   Or ever we came, wi` scathe and shame,     To try what end might be.   Scathe and shame, and a waefu` name,     And a weary time and strange,   Have they that seeing a weird for dreeing     Can die, and cannot change.   Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn,     Though sair be they to dree:   But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide,     Mair keen than wind and sea.   Ill may we thole the night`s watches,     And ill the weary day:   And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep,     A waefu` gift gie they;   For the songs they sing us, the sights they bring us,     The morn blaws all away.   On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw,     The burn rins blithe and fain:   There`s nought wi` me I wadna gie     To look thereon again.   On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide:     There sounds nae hunting-horn   That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat     Round banks where Tyne is born.   The Wansbeck sings with all her springs     The bents and braes give ear;   But the wood that rings wi` the sang she sings     I may not see nor hear;   For far and far thae blithe burns are,     And strange is a` thing near.   The light there lightens, the day there brightens,     The loud wind there lives free:   Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by me     That I wad hear or see.   But O gin I were there again,     Afar ayont the faem,   Cauld and dead in the sweet saft bed     That haps my sires at hame!   We`ll see nae mair the sea-banks fair,     And the sweet grey gleaming sky,   And the lordly strand of Northumberland,     And the goodly towers thereby;   And none shall know but the winds that blow     The graves wherein we lie.
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