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SONG FOR "TASSO."

I LOVED- -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,
Of all that men had thought before,
And all that nature shows, and more.

And still I love and still I think,
But strangely, for my heart can drink
The dregs of such despair, and live,
And love;

And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
I mix the present with the past,
And each seems uglier than the last.

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
It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge

Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge.

LOVE LEFT ALONE.

I LOVED, I love, and when I love no more,
Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair
To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,
The embodied vision of the brightest dream,
Which like a dawn heralds the day of life;
The shadow of his presence made my world
A paradise. All familiar things he touched,
All common words he spoke, became to me
Like forms and sounds of a diviner world.
He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,
As terrible and lovely as a tempest;
He came, and went, and left me what I am

Alas! Why must I think how oft we two
Have sate together near the river springs,
Under the green pavilion which the willow
Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain,
Strewn by the nurslings that linger there,
Over that islet paved with flowers and moss,
While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson

snow,

Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine,
Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own?

The crane returned to her unfrozen haunt,
And the false cuckoo bade the spray good morn;
And on a wintry bough the widowed bird,
Hid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves,
Renewed the vigils of a sleepless sorrow.

An Unfinished Drama. 1822.

G

FROM THE ARABIC.

AN IMITATION.

My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight
Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
Did companion thee.

Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
Or the death they bear,

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.

THE INDIAN SERENADE.

I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet

Hath led me who knows how?

To thy chamber window, Sweet!

1821.

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O lift me from the grass!
I die I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast ;-
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

1819.

ΤΟ

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,
Thou needest not fear mine;

Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

A SONG.

A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love
Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.

1822.

LOVE AND PARTING.

SHE saw me not-she heard me not-alone
Upon the mountain's dizzy brink she stood;
She spake not, breathed not, moved not-there
was thrown

Over her look, the shadow of a mood

Which only clothes the heart in solitude,

A thought of voiceless depth ;-she stood alone, Above, the Heavens were spread ;—below, the flood Was murmuring in its caves;—-the wind had blown Her hair apart, thro' which her eyes and forehead shone.

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