My heart each day desires the morrow, Vainly would my winter borrow Sunny leaves from any bough. Lilies for a bridal bed, Roses for a matron's head, Violets for a maiden dead, Pansies let my flowers be: On the living grave I bear, Scatter them without a tear, Let no friend, however dear, Waste one hope, one fear for me. THE PINE FOREST OF THE CASCINE, NEAR PISA. EAREST, best and brightest, Come away, To the woods and to the fields ! Dearer than this fairest day, Which like thee to those in sorrow, The eldest of the hours of spring, Into the winter wandering, And waked to music all the fountains, Radiant Sister of the Day, Where the Pine its garland weaves, Sapless, grey, and ivy dun Round stones that never kiss the sun, Now the last day of many days, We wander'd to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean's foam, The whispering waves were half asleep, It seem'd as if the day were one Which shed to earth above the sun We paused amid the Pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude, How calm it was-the silence there The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew, It seem'd that from the remotest seat A spirit interfused around, Our mortal Nature's strife. For still it seem'd the centre of Was one whose being fill'd with love Were not the crocuses that grew Under that ilex tree, As beautiful in scent and hue As ever fed the bee? We stood beside the pools that lie And each seemed like a sky Gulf'd in a world below; A purple firmament of light, More boundless than the depth of night, In which the massy forests grew, More perfect both in shape and hue Than any waving there. Like one beloved, the scene had lent To the dark water's breast Its every leaf and lineament With that clear truth express'd. There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn, Sweet views, which in our world above And all was interfused beneath Within an Elysium air, An atmosphere without a breath, Until a wandering wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought, Blots thy bright image out. For thou art good and dear and kind, But less of peace in S's mind, Than calm in waters secn. February 2, 1822. TO NIGHT. WIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, When I arose and saw the dawn, When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turn'd to his rest, Thy brother Death came, and cried, Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me ?—And I replied, |