The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. ) "Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more." She ended with such passion that the tear, She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl Lost in her bosom : but with some disdain Answer'd the Princess, 'If indeed there haunt About the moulder'd lodges of the Past So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool And so pace by: but thine are fancies hatch'd In silken-folded idleness; nor is it Wiser to weep a true occasion gone, But trim our sails, and let the old proverb serve While down the streams that buoy each separate craft To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, Their cancell'd Babels: tho' the rough kex break The starr'd mosaic, and the wild goat hang Upon the pillar, and the wild figtree split Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear A trumpet in the distance pealing news Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns But deals with the other distance and the hues Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine.' Then I remember'd one myself had made What time I watch'd the swallow winging south From mine own land, part made long since, and part Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 'O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. 'O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North. 'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and thrill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 'O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ? 'O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made. 'O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.' I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 'O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, And dress the victim to the offering up, And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, And play the slave to gain the tyranny. Love is it? I would this same mock-love, and this Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered Whole in ourselves and due to none. Enough! soil, Know you no song, the true growth of your |