"Was old, the joy which waked like Away! the gathering winds will call Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood: Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. Away, away! to thy sad and silent home; Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth; Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth. The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head: The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet: But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead, The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep: Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows; Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep. Thou in the grave shalt rest—yet till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile, Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile. IV Upon my heart thy accents sweet V 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 VI Gentle and good and mild thou art, Nor can I live if thou appear Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart Away from me, or stoop to wear The mask of scorn, although it be To hide the love thou feel'st for me. ΤΟ YET look on me-take not thine eyes away, Which feed upon the love within mine own, Which is indeed but the reflected ray Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown. Yet speak to me-thy voice is as the tone Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear That thou yet lovest me; yet thou alone Like one before a mirror, without care Of aught but thine own features, imaged there; And yet I wear out life in watching thee; A toil so sweet at times, and thou indeed Art kind when I am sick, and pity me. Night closes round, and they are lost for ever: Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings Give various response to each varying blast, To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood or modulation like the last. We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep; We rise. One wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep; Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away: It is the same!-For, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free: Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability. ON DEATH THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, 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 That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD, LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray; And pallid evening twines its beaming hair O man! hold thee on in courage of soul In duskier braids around the languid Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, eyes of day: Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, The winds are still, or the dry church- With mountain winds, and babbling tower grass Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. Thou too, aërial Pile! whose pinnacles Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, And thou hast sought in starry eyes Beams that were never meant for thine, Around whose lessening and invisible Another's wealth :--tame sacrifice height To a fond faith! still dost thou pine? Gather among the stars the clouds of Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands? night. The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres : And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrill- Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine ing sound Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around, hope On the false earth's inconstancy? Did thine own mind afford no scope Of love, or moving thoughts to thee? That natural scenes or human smiles And mingling with the still night and Could steal the power to wind thee in mute sky Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. Thus solemnised and softened, death is mild And terrorless as this serenest night: child Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep their wiles. Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled The glory of the moon is dead; Thine own soul still is true to thee, That loveliest dreams perpetual watch This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever Beside thee like thy shadow hangs, did keep. |