O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven Is thrown, So your voice most tender To the strings without soul had then given Its own. The stars will awaken, Though the moon sleep a full hour later To-night; No leaf will be shaken Whilst the dews of your melody scatter Though the sound overpowers, Sing again, with your dear voice revealing A tone Of some world far from ours, Where music and moonlight and feeling LINES. WHEN the lamp is shattered, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendor Survive not the lamp and the lute, No song when the spirit is mute, Like the wind through a ruined cell, That ring the dead seaman's knell. When hearts have once mingled, The frailty of all things here, For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Its passions will rock thee, As the storms rock the ravens on high; Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come. A DIRGE. ROUGH wind, that moanest loud Wild wind, when sullen cloud Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Wail, for the world's wrong. * Qy. strain? CHARLES THE FIRST. A FRAGMENT. ACT I SCENE. I.-The Pageant to celebrate the arrival of the Queen A PURSUIVANT. PLACE for the Marshal of the Masque ! FIRST SPEAKER. What thinkest thou of this quaint masque, which turns Like morning from the shadow of the night, Of peace and joy? SECOND SPEAKER. And Hell to Heaven. Eight years are gone, And they seem hours, since in this populous street That sin and wrongs wound as an orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear. THIRD SPEAKER (a youth.) Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see, By God or man;-'tis like the bright possession From which men wake as from a paradise, And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. If God be good, wherefore should this be evil? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers Which bloom so rarely in this barren world? O, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present Dark as the future! When avarice and tyranny, vigilant fear, As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts SECOND SPEAKER. How young art thou in this old age of time! How green in this gray world! Canst thou not think Of change in that low scene, in which thou art Not a spectator, but an actor? |