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The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove

With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,
Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee.

TO EMILIA VIVIANI.

MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet basil and mignonette,
Embleming love and health, which never yet
In the same wreath might be?

Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?
For never rain or dew

Such fragrance drew

From plant or flower the very doubt endears My sadness ever new,

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.

Send the stars light, but send not love to me, In whom love ever made

Health like a heap of embers soon to fade.

TIME.

UNFATHOMABLE Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow

Claspest the limits of mortality!

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea?

LINES.

I.

FAR, far away, O ye

Halcyons of memory,

Seek some far calmer nest

Than this abandoned breast;—
No news of your false spring
To my heart's winter bring,
Once having gone, in vain
Ye come again.

II.

Vultures, who build

your bowers

High in the Future's towers,

Withered hopes on hopes are spread,
Dying joys choked by the dead,
Will serve your beaks for prey
Many a day.

THE FUGITIVES.

I.

THE waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar spray is dancing-
Away!

The whirlwind is rolling,
The thunder is tolling,
The forest is swinging,
The minster bells ringing-
Come away!

The Earth is like Ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion:
Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm-
Come away!

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And she cried: "Ply the oar!
Put off gaily from shore!"-
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail, specked their path
O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower and rock,
The blue beacon cloud broke,
And though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast

From the lee.

III.

"And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou? And seest thou, and hear'st thou? And drive we not free

O'er the terrible sea,

I and thou?"

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One boat-cloke did cover
The loved and the lover-
Their blood beats one measure,
They murmur proud pleasure
Soft and low;-

While around the lashed Ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered and shifted
To and fro.

IV.

In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,

Like a blood-hound well beaten,
The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame;

On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the grey tyrant father,-
To his voice the mad weather
Seems tame;

And with curses as wild

As e'er clung to child,

He devotes to the blast

The best, loveliest and last

Of his name!

ΤΟ

MUSIC, when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

MUTABILITY.

I.

THE flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

II.

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship how rare!

Love, how it sells poor bliss

For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

III.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;

Whilst

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou-and from thy sleep

Then wake to weep.

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