IV.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
"Wouldst thou me?"

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
"Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?" -And I replied,
"No, not thee."

v.

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Sleep will come when thou art fled.
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

FROM THE ARABIC.

AN IMITATION.

My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight,

Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,

Did companion thee.

Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,

Or the death they bear,

The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove

With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,

Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,

It may bring to thee.

TO EMILIA VIVIANI.

MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet-basil and mignonette,

Embleming love and health, which never yet

In the same wreath might be?

Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?
For never rain or dew

Such fragrance drew

From plant or flower. The very doubt endears
My sadness ever new,

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed, for thee.

March 1821.

TIME.

UNFATHOMABLE Sea, whose waves are years!
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,

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
Halcyons of Memory!

Seek some far calmer nest
Than this abandoned breast;
No news of your false Spring
To my heart's winter bring.
Once having gone, in vain
Ye come again.

Vultures who build your bowers
High in the future's towers!
Withered hopes on hopes are spread:
Dying joys, choked by the dead,

Will serve your beaks for prey
Many a day.

THE FUGITIVES.

I.

THE waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar spray is dancing:-
Away!

The whirlwind is rolling,

The thunder is tolling,

The forest is swinging,

The minster bells ringing:

Come away!

The earth is like ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion;
Bird, beast, man, and worm,
Have crept out of the storm:-
Come away!

II.

"Our boat has one sail,
And the helmsman is pale.
A bold pilot, I trow,
Who should follow us now!"

Shouted he.

And she cried: "Ply the oar;
Put off gaily from shore !"-
As she spoke, bolts of death,
Mixed with hail, specked their path

O'er the sea :

And from isle, tower, and rock,
The blue beacon-cloud broke:
And, though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast

From the lee.

III.

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
The loved and the lover;
Their blood beats one measure,
They murmur proud pleasure
Soft and low;-

While around the lashed ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered, and shifted
To and fro.

IV.

In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,
Like a bloodhound well beaten
The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame.

On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the grey tyrant father;
To his voice, the mad weather
Seems tame;

And, with curses as wild
As e'er clung to child,
He devotes to the blast

The best, loveliest, and last,

Of his name.

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken;

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

SONG.

I.

RARELY, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night?

Many a weary night and day 'Tis since thou art fled away.

II.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?

With the joyous and the free,

Thou wilt scoff at pain.

Spirit false! thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

III.

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;

Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.

IV.

Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure ;-

Thou wilt never come for pity,

Thou wilt come for pleasure;

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

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