9. Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, XVI. STANZAS. "Heu quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse !" 1. AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed, In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook 2. I will not ask where thou liest low, Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I lov'd and long must love Like common earth can rot; To me there needs no stone to tell 'Tis Nothing that I lov'd so well. 3. Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who did'st not change through all the past, And can'st not alter now. The love where Death has set his seal, Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou can'st not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. 4. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine: The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, Shall never more be thine. The silence of that dreamless sleep I envy now too much to weep; 'Nor need I to repine That all those charms have pass'd away: I might have watch'd through long decay. 5. The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Though by no hand untimely snatch'd, The leaves must drop away: And yet it were a greater grief To watch it withering, leaf by leaf, Than see it pluck'd to-day; Since earthly eye but ill can bear To trace the change to foul from fair. 6. I know not if I could have borne To see thy beauties fade; The night that follow'd such a morn Thy day without a cloud hath past, As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high. 7. As once I wept, if I could weep, To gaze-how fondly! on thy face, To fold thee in a faint embrace, Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, Nor thou nor I can feel again. 8. Yet how much less it were to gain, The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread Eternity And more thy buried love endears XVII. STANZAS. 1. If sometimes in the haunts of men, Thine image from my breast may fade, The lonely hour presents again The semblance of thy gentle shade: And now that sad and silent hour Thus much of thee can still restore, And sorrow unobserv'd may pour The plaint she dare not speak before. |