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II.

From a single cloud the lightning flashes,
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around;
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,
An hundred are shuddering and tottering;
the sound

Is bellowing underground.

III.

But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare, And swifter thy step than the earthquake's

tramp;

Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy

stare

Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp

To thine is a fen-fire damp.

IV.

From billow and mountain and exhalation The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;

From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation, From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night

In the van of the morning light.

GOOD NIGHT.

I.

GOOD night? ah! no; the hour is ill

Which severs those it should unite;

Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

II.

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood-
Then it will be-good night.

III.

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good night.

BUONA NOTTE.

I.

"BUONA notte, buona notte !"-Come mai
La notte sarà buona senza te?
Non dirmi buona notte,-chè tu sai,
La notte sà star buona da per sè.

II.

Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme,
La notte quando Lilla m'abbandona ;
Pei cuori chi si batton insieme

Ogni notte, senza dirla, sarà buona.

III.

Come male buona notte si suona
Con sospiri e parole interotte!-
Il modo di aver la notte buona
E mai non di dir la buona notte.

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

I.

TELL me, thou star, whose wings of light Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

II.

Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

III.

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?

AUTUMN:

A DIRGE.

I.

THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,

The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,

And the year

On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

Come, months, come away,
From November to May,

In your saddest array;
Follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

II.

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,

The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling For the year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone

To his dwelling;

Come, months, come away;

Put on white, black, and grey;
Let your light sisters play-

Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

DEATH.

I.

DEATH is here and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere,

All around, within, beneath,

Above is death-and we are death.

II.

Death has set his mark and seal
On all we are and all we feel,
On all we know and all we fear,

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First our pleasures die-and then

Our hopes, and then our fears-and when

These are dead, the debt is due,

Dust claims dust-and we die too.

1

IV.

All things that we love and cherish
Like ourselves must fade and perish,
Such is our rude mortal lot-
Love itself would, did they not.

ORPHEUS.1

A.

Nor far from hence. From yonder pointed hill,
Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold
A dark and barren field, through which there
flows,

Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream,
Which the wind ripples not, and the fair moon
Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.
Follow the herbless banks of that strange brook
Until you pause beside a darksome pond,
The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush
Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night
That lives beneath the overhanging rock
That shades the pool-an endless spring of
gloom,

Upon whose edge hovers the tender light,
Trembling to mingle with its paramour,-
But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day,
Or, with most sullen and regardless hate,
Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace.
On one side of this jagged and shapeless hill
There is a cave, from which there eddies up
A pale mist, like aërial gossamer,

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1 Dr. Garnett has hazarded the conjecture that this was improvised by Shelley after the manner of Sgricci, whose gifts in that line were familiar to the poet.-ED.

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