All things that we love and cherish, Like ourselves, must fade and perish; Such is our rude mortal lot Love itself would, did they not. ΤΟ WHEN passion's trance is overpast, It were enough to feel, to see After the slumber of the year And sky and sea, but two, which move, PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. LISTEN, listen, Mary mine, To the whisper of the Apennine. It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, Or like the sea on a northern shore, Heard in its raging ebb and flow By the captives pent in the cave below. Heaping over their corpses cold Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. Forget the dead, the past? O yet There are ghosts that may take revenge for it Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom, SONG OF A SPIRIT. WITHIN the silent centre of the earth Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world; Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron. And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns In the dark space of interstellar air. LIBERTY. THE fiery mountains answer each other; From a single cloud the lightning flashes, A hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare, And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp; Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp To thine is a fen-fire damp. From billow and mountain and exhalation ΤΟ MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed; Yes, I was firm-thus did not thou;My baffled looks did fear, yet dread, To meet thy looks-I could not know How anxiously they sought to shine With soothing pity upon mine. LINES. FAR, far away, O ye Halcyons of memory, Seek some far calmer nest Than this abandon'd breast;No news of your false spring To my heart's winter bring, Once having gone, in vain Ye come again. Vultures, who build your bowers SUPERSTITION. THOU taintest all thou look'st upon! The stars, The grass, the clouds, the mountains, and the sea, Reproach'd thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodest O! THERE ARE SPIRITS. ΔΑΚΡΥΕΙ ΔΙΟΙΣΩ ΠΟΤΜΟΝ ΑΠΟΤΜΟΝ. O! THERE are spirits of the air, And genii of the evening breeze, And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair As star-beams among twilight trees : Such lovely ministers to meet Oft hast thou turn'd from men thy lonely feet. With mountain winds, and babbling springs, And moonlight seas, that are the voice Of these inexplicable things, Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice When they did answer thee; but they Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away. And thou hast sought in starry eyes Beams that were never meant for thine, Another's wealth;-tame sacrifice To a fond faith! still dost thou pine? Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands? Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope Of love, or moving thoughts, to thee? Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles. Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted; The glory of the moon is dead; Night's ghost and dreams have now departed, Thine own soul still is true to thee, But changed to a foul fiend through misery. Thou in the grave shalt rest—yet till the phantoms Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? Who lifteth the veil of what is to come? flee Which that house and heath and garden made Who painteth the shadows that are beneath dear to thee erewhile, The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb? Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be are not free From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile. MUTABILITY. We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; Night closes round, and they are lost for ever; Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings We rest-A dream has power to poison sleep; It is the same!-For, be it joy or sorrow, ON DEATH. With the fears and the love for that which we see? A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCH-YARD, LECHDALE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE. THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day: They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Responding to the charm with its own mystery. The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres: And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around, There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, And, mingling with the still night and mute sky, in the grave, whither thou goest.-Ecclesiastes. THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. Thus solemnized and soften'd, death is mild Here could I hope, like some inquiring child That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep O man! hold thee on in courage of soul Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, This world is the nurse of all we know, This world is the mother of all we feel, And the coming of death is a fearful blow To a brain unencompass'd with nerves of steel; The secret things of the grave are there, That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF WHAT! alive and so bold, Q earth? What! leapest thou forth as of old The last of the flock of the starry fold? Ha! leapest thou forth as of old? Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled, Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear How! is not thy quick heart cold? No longer will live, to hear or to see What spark is alive on thy hearth? * At Pisa there still exists the prison of Ugolino, which goes by the name of "La Torre della Fame:" in the adjoining building the galley-slaves are confined. It is situ ated near the Ponte al Mare on the Arno. There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers Are by its presence dimm'd-they stand aloof, Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror DIRGE FOR THE YEAR For the year is but asleep. As an earthquake rocks a corse As the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days Rocks the year:-be calm and mild, Trembling hours, she will arise With new love within her eyes. |