To sit and curb the soul's mute rage To curse the life which is the cage Of fettered grief that dares not groan, Hiding from many a careless eye The scorned load of agony. Whilst thou alone, then not regarded, As thou, sweet love, requited me When none were near-Oh! I did wake From torture for that moment's sake. Upon my heart thy accents sweet On flowers half dead ;-thy lips did meet Mine tremblingly; thy dark eyes threw Their soft persuasion on my brain, Charming away its dream of pain. We are not happy, sweet; our state Is strange and full of doubt and fear; More need of words that ills abate ; - Reserve or censure come not near Our sacred friendship, lest there be No solace left for thou and me. Gentle and good and mild thou art, THE ISLE. THERE was a little lawny islet Like mosaic, paven: And its roof was flowers and leaves Which the summer's breath enweaves, Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze Pierce the pines and tallest trees, Each a gem engraven. Girt by many an azure wave With which the clouds and mountains pave A lake's blue chasm. ΤΟ Music, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved's bed; TIME. UNFATHOMABLE Sea! whose waves are years, And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, LINES. THAT time is dead for ever, child, At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast, The stream we gazed on then rolled by; But we yet stand In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee November 5th, 1817. A SONG. A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love The frozen wind crept on above, There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground, And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel's sound. THE WORLD'S WANDERERS. TELL me, thou star, whose wings of light Speed thee in thy fiery flight, In what cavern of the night Will thy pinions close now? Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey Weary wind, who wanderest A DIRGE. ROUGH wind, that moanest loud Wild wind, when sullen cloud Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Wail, for the world's wrong! LINES. FAR, far away, O ye Seek some far calmer nest No news of your false spring Vultures, who build your bowels Withered hopes on hopes are spread, Dying joys, choked by the dead, |