XVII. THOU Comest, much wept for such a breeze Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer Was as the whisper of an air To breathe thee over lonely seas. For I in spirit saw thee move Thro' circles of the bounding sky; Week after week: the days go by: Come quick, thou bringest all I love. Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, Is on the waters day and night, So may whatever tempest mars Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark ; And balmy drops in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars. So kind an office hath been done, Such precious relics brought by thee; The dust of him I shall not see Till all my widow'd race be run. XVIII. 'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land. 'Tis little; but it looks in truth As if the quiet bones were blest Among familiar names to rest And in the places of his youth. Come then, pure hands, and bear the head That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, And come, whatever loves to weep, And hear the ritual of the dead. Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, I, falling on his faithful heart, Would breathing thro' his lips impart The life that almost dies in me: That dies not, but endures with pain, And slowly forms the firmer mind, Treasuring the look it cannot find, The words that are not heard again. XIX. THE Danube to the Severn gave The darken'd heart that beat no more; They laid him by the pleasant shore, And in the hearing of the wave. There twice a day the Severn fills; And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills. The Wye is hush'd nor moved along ; I brim with sorrow drowning song. The tide flows down, the wave again And I can speak a little then. |