By blood or tears, have not the wise and free Wept tears, and blood like tears? The solemn
Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, Sinks headlong through the aërial golden light On the heavy sounding plain,
When the bolt has pierced its brain;
As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain ; As a far taper fades with fading night,
As a brief insect dies with dying day, My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, As waves which lately paved his watery way Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play.
En, in which arayed
I mersuri me te mat wandy shade,
Le stattet and my aming wounded breast Sans with ter band is unmaternal nest!
I weep vain tears: blood would less bitter be, Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee.
Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman All that is insupportable in thee
Of light, and love, and immortality! Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse! Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe!
Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form Among the Dead! Thou Star above the Storm! Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror ! Thou Harmony of Nature's art! Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on! Aye, even the dim words which obscure thee now Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow; I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song All of its much mortality and wrong,
With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy:
Then smile on it, so that it may not die.
I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily,
I love thee; though the world by no thin name Will hide that love, from its unvalued shame. Would we two had been twins of the same mother! Or, that the name my heart lent to another Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, Blending two beams of one eternity!
Yet were one lawful and the other true,
These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me!
I am not thine: I am a part of thee.
Sweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burnt its wings ; Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings,
Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style, All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile,
A lovely soul formed to be blest and bless? A well of sealed and secret happiness,
Whose waters like blithe light and music are, Vanquishing dissonance and gloom? A Star Which moves not in the moving Heavens, alone? A smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone Amid rude voices? a beloved light?
A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight?
A Lute, which those whom love has taught to play Make music on, to soothe the roughest day
And lull fond grief asleep? a buried treasure?
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure?
A violet-shrouded grave of Woe?—I measure The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, alas! mine own infirmity.
She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way, And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day, Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, Led into light, life, peace. An antelope, In the suspended impulse of its lightness, Were less ætherially light: the brightness Of her divinest presence trembles through Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew Embodied in the windless Heaven of June Amid the splendour-wingèd stars, the Moon Burns, inextinguishably beautiful:
And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, Killing the sense with passion; sweet as stops Of planetary music heard in trance. In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, The sun-beams of those wells which ever leap Under the lightnings of the soul— too deep For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. The glory of her being, issuing thence,
Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade Of unentangled intermixture, made
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