Death will come when thou art dead, Sleep will come when thou art fled; EVENING. PONTE A MARE, PISA. HE sun is set; the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the grey air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its silent dream. There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light; And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirl'd about the pavement of the town. Within the surface of the fleeting river The wrinkled image of the city lay, Immovably unquiet, and for ever 1 It trembles, but it never fades away; The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut Which the keen evening star is shining through. THE QUESTION. DREAM'D that, as I wander'd by the way, Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd may, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black and streak'd with gold, Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, With moonlight beams of their own watery light; Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way AUTUMN: A DIRGE. HE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, And the year [dying, On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, For the year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone Come, months, come away; Of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. D HYMN OF APOLLO. HE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, Curtain'd with star-enwoven tapestries, From the broad moonlight of the sky, Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,— Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are fill'd with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Fly me, and from the glory of my ray I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, For grief that I depart they weep and frown: 'With which I soothe them from the western isle? I am the eye with which the Universe All prophecy, all medicine are mine, HYMN OF PAN. ROM the forests and highlands From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, Listening to my sweet pipings. Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay In Pelion's shadow, out-growing The light of the dying day, Speeded by my sweet pipings. The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, And the brink of the dewy caves, And all that did then attend and follow With envy of my sweet pipings. This and the former poem were written at the request of a friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. Apollo and Pan contended before Tmolus for the prize in music. |