Will long lament the vanish'd ray That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. III. ONE struggle more, and I am free From pangs that rend my heart in twain; One last long sigh to love and thee, Then back to busy life again. It suits me well to mingle now With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below, What future grief can touch me more? Then bring me wine, the banquet bring; Man was not form'd to live alone: I'll be that light unmeaning thing That smiles with all, and weeps with none. It was not thus in days more dear, It never would have been, but thou Hast fled, and left me lonely here; Thou 'rt nothing, all are nothing now. The smile that sorrow fain would wear Though pleasure fires the maddening soul, On many a lone and lovely night And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon, << That Thyrza cannot know my pains. » My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! EUTHANASIA. WHEN time, or soon or late, shall bring Wave gently o'er my dying bed! To feel, or feign, decorous woe. With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear. Yet love, if love in such an hour Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power In her who lives and him who dies. 'T were sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see: Forgetful of its struggles past, E'en pain itself should smile on thee. But vain the wish-for beauty still Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. Then lonely be my latest hour, Without regret, without a groan! VOL. VII. 25 For thousands death hath ceased to lower, " And pain been transient or unknown. Where all have gone, and all must go! Ere born to life and living woe. STANZAS. << Heu quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!» AND thou art dead, as young As aught of mortal birth; and fair And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though earth received them in her bed, And o'er the spot the crowd may tread There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, It is enough for me to prove That what I loved and long must love Like common earth can rot; To me there needs no stone to tell, 'Tis nothing that I loved so well. Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, The love where death has set his seal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine; The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, I envy now too much to weep; Nor need I to repine That all those charms have pass'd away, The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Though by no hand untimely snatch'd, |