Her lips and cheeks were like things dead-so pale; Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins 40 And weak articulations might be seen "Inheritor of more than earth can give, Passionless calm and silence unreproved, Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest, And are the uncomplaining things they seem, Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love; Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were Peace!" This was the only moan she ever made. FRAGMENT ON HOME. 50 DEAR home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys, The least of which wronged Memory ever makes Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears. FRAGMENT OF A GHOST-STORY. A SHOVEL of his ashes took But Helen clung to her brother's arm, POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817. MARIANNE'S DREAM.1 I. A PALE dream came to a Lady fair, And things are lost in the glare of day, II. And thou shalt know of things unknown, III. At first all deadly shapes were driven And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven If the golden sun shone forth on high. IV. And, as towards the east she turned, 1 Mrs. Leigh Hunt, the "Marianne" of this poem, dreamed the dream in question and related it to Shelley. -ED. And wherever the Lady turned her eyes V. The sky was blue as the summer sea, There was no sight or sound of dread, VI. The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear, VII. There was a mist in the sunless air, Which shook as it were with an earthquake's shock, But the very weeds that blossomed there Were moveless, and each mighty rock Stood on its basis steadfastly; The Anchor was seen no more on high. VIII. But piled around, with summits hid IX. On two dread mountains, from whose crest X. And columns framed of marble white, XI. But still the Lady heard that clang away; And still the mist whose light did hang On those high domes her look she cast. XII. Sudden from out that city sprung A light that made the earth grow red; Two flames that each with quivering tongue Licked its high domes, and over head Among those mighty towers and fanes Dropped fire, as a volcano rains Its sulphurous ruin on the plains. XIII. And hark! a rush as if the deep A raging flood descend, and wind XIV. And now those raging billows came Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro. XV. The flames' were fiercely vomited O'er that vast flood's suspended foam, XVI. The plank whereon that Lady sate Was driven through the chasms, about and about, Between the peaks so desolate Of the drowning mountains, in and out, As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sailsWhile the flood was filling those hollow vales. The word waves stood here till Mr. Rossetti substituted flames, which is unquestionably right.—ED. |