The moon made thy lips pale, beloved; The wind made thy bosom chill; On thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie Where the bitter breath of the naked sky First our pleasures die-and then Our hopes, and then our fears—and when Dust claims dust-and we die too. All things that we love and cherish, 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, And for all others, life and love. PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. LISTEN, listen, Mary mine, To the wisper 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. The Apennine in the light of day Is a mighty mountain dim and grey, Which between the earth and sky doth lay; But when night comes, a chaos dread Ou the dim starlight then is spread, And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. May 4th, 1818. TO MARY. O Mary dear, that you were here In the ivy bower disconsolate; And your brow more * Mary dear, come to me soon, * * sky I am not well whilst thou art far; O Mary dear, that you were here! The Castle echo whispers" Here!" Este, September, 1818. THE PAST. WILT thou forget the happy hours Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, Heaping over their corpses cold Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, Forget the dead, the past? O yet There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, That joy, once lost, is pain. SONG OF A SPIRIT. WITHIN the silent centre of the earth Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world'; I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, In the dark space of interstellar air. LIBERTY. THE fiery mountains answer each other; Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone; The tempestuous oceans awake one another, From a single cloud the lightning flashes, A hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare, From billow and mountain and exhalation ΤΟ MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed; 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. |