1822. 1822. XCV. LINES. I. WE meet not as we parted; We feel more than all may see; And thine full of doubt for me. One moment has bound the free. II. That moment is gone for ever; Like lightning that flashed and died, Like a snowflake upon the river, Like a sunbeam upon the tide, Which the dark shadows hide. III. That moment from time was singled IV. Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden V. Methinks too little cost For a moment so found, so lost! XCVI. Bright wanderer, fair coquette of heaven, XCVII. THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE. SWIFT as a spirit hastening to his task Of darkness fell from the awakened earth. To which the birds tempered their matin lay. Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear Their portion of the toil which he of old Took as his own, and then imposed on them. But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem The cone of night, now they were laid asleep Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem Which an old chesnut flung athwart the steep Of a green Apennine. Before me fled Was at my feet, and heaven above my head ;— When a strange trance over my fancy grew, Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread Was so transparent that the scene came through That I had felt the freshness of that dawn Under the selfsame bough, and heard as there As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay, Thick strewn with summer dust; and a great stream Of people there was hurrying to and fro, Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,- Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear: Some flying from the thing they feared, and some Seeking the object of another's fear. And others, as with steps towards the tomb, Poured on the trodden worms that crawled beneath; And others mournfully within the gloom Of their own shadow walked, and called it death; Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath. But more, with motions which each other crossed, Pursued or spurned the shadows the clouds threw, Or birds within the noonday ether lost, Upon that path where flowers never grew,— Of grassy paths, and wood lawn-interspersed, With overarching elms, and caverns cold, And violet-banks where sweet dreams brood;-but they Pursued their serious folly as of old. And, as I gazed, methought that in the way And a cold glare, intenser than the noon But icy cold, obscured with blinding light The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon When on the sunlit limits of the night Her white shell trembles amid crimson air, And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear The ghost of her dead mother, whose dim form Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair: So came a chariot on the silent storm Beneath a dusky hood and double cape, Crouching within the shadow of a tomb. Was bent, a dun and faint etherial gloom The guidance of that wonder-wingèd team. The music of their ever-moving wings. All the four faces of that Charioteer Had their eyes banded. Little profit brings Speed in the van and blindness in the rear, Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun: Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere Of all that is, has been, or will be, done. So ill was the car guided--but it passed With solemn speed majestically on. The crowd gave way; and I arose aghast, Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance, And saw, like clouds upon the thunder's blast, The million with fierce song and maniac dance Raging around. Such seemed the jubilee As when, to meet some conqueror's advance, Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear. Nor wanted here the just similitude Of a triumphal pageant, for, where'er The chariot rolled, a captive multitude Was driven :-all those who had grown old in power Or misery; all who had their age subdued By action or by suffering, and whose hour Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe, So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower; All those whose fame or infamy must grow All but the sacred few who could not tame Fled back like eagles to their native noon, Or those who put aside the diadem Of earthly thrones or gems . . . Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem, Nor those who went before fierce and obscene. Outspeed the chariot, and without repose |