SONG FOR "TASSO." I LOVED I. alas! our life is love; But when we cease to breathe and move I do suppose love ceases too. I thought, but not as now I do, Keen thoughts and bright of linkèd lore, II. And still I love and still I think, And if I think, my thoughts come fast, III. Sometimes I see before me flee A silver spirit's form, like thee, O Leonora, and I sit Still watching it, Till by the grated casement's ledge PALACE-ROOF of cloudless nights! Paradise of golden lights! Deep, immeasurable, vast, Which art now, and which wert then! Of acts and ages yet to come! Glorious shapes have life in thee, And icy moons most cold and bright, Even thy name is as a god, Heaven for thou art the abode Of that power which is the glass Wherein man his nature sees. Generations as they pass Worship thee with bended knees. Thou remainest such alway. SECOND SPIRIT. Thou art but the mind's first chamber, Round which its young fancies clamber, Like weak insects in a cave, Lighted up by stalactites; But the portal of the grave, Where a world of new delights Will make thy best glories seem But a dim and noonday gleam From the shadow of a dream! THIRD SPIRIT. Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn At your presumption, atom-born! What is heaven? and what are ye Who its brief expanse inherit? What are suns and spheres which flee With the instinct of that spirit Of which ye are but a part? Drops which Nature's mighty heart Drives through thinnest veins. Depart! What is heaven? a globe of dew, Filling in the morning new Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken On an unimagined world: Constellated suns unshaken, AN EXHORTATION. CAMELIONS feed on light and air: Poets' food is love and fame: If in this wide world of care Poets could but find the same With as little toil as they, Would they ever change their hue As the light camelions do, Suiting it to every ray Twenty times a-day? Poets are on this cold earth, Yet dare not stain with wealth or power |