1. 66 DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. 'ORPHAN Hours, the Year is dead! Come and sigh, come and weep!""Merry Hours, smile instead, For the Year is but asleep : 2. "As an earthquake rocks a corse وو So white Winter, that rough nurse, For your Mother in her shroud." 3. "As the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child, 4. "January grey is here, Like a sexton by her grave; March with grief doth howl and rave; 1 January 1821. TO NIGHT. I. SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave Where, all the long and lone daylight, 2. Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; 3. When I arose and saw the dawn, When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 4. Thy brother Death came, and cried, Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 66 'Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me?"—And I replied, "No, not thee." 5. Death will come when thou art dead. Sleep will come when thou art fled. I ask of thee, beloved Night- FROM THE ARABIC. AN IMITATION. My faint spirit was sitting in the light It panted for thee like the hind at noon Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight, My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed, Or the death they bear, The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove In the battle, in the darkness, in the need, Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, TO EMILIA VIVIANI. MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me Alas, and they are wet! Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? Such fragrance drew From plant or flower. The very doubt endears The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed, for thee. March 1821. TIME. UNFATHOMABLE Sea, whose waves are years! Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow And, sick of prey yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore! Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea? LINES. FAR, far away, O ye Seek some far calmer nest Vultures who build your bowers THE FUGITIVES. I. THE waters are flashing, The whirlwind is rolling, The forest is swinging, The earth is like ocean, 2. "Our boat has one sail, And the helmsman is pale. A bold pilot, I trow, Who should follow us now!" And she cried: "Ply the oar; And from isle, tower, and rock, From the lee. 3. And "Fear'st thou?" and "Fear'st thou ?" And "Seest thou?" and "Hear'st thou?" And "Drive we not free O'er the terrible sea, I and thou?" One boat-cloak did cover While around the lashed ocean. 4. In the court of the fortress Like a bloodhound well beaten On the topmost watch-turret, And, with curses as wild He devotes to the blast The best, loveliest, and last, ΤΟ MUSIC, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, SONG. 1. RARELY, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight! |