II. The voice that made those sounds more sweet A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Is worse than discord to my heart! III. 'T is silent all! —but on my ear A voice that now might well be still: IV. Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep, Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath Will long lament the vanish'd ray That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. TO THYRZA. I. 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? · II. Then bring me wine, the banquet bring That smiles with all, and weeps with none. III. In vain my lyre would lightly breathe! Though gay companions o'er the bowl Though pleasure fires the maddening soul, When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed, And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, ""T is comfort still," I faintly said, "That Thyrza cannot know my pains : Like freedom to the time-worn slave, A boon 't is idle then to give, Relenting Nature vainly gave, My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! VI. My Thyrza's pledge in better days, The heart that gave itself with thee VII. Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! EUTHANASIA. I. WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring II. No band of friends or heirs be there, III. But silent let me sink to Earth, With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear. IV. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour In her who lives and him who dies. V. '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. Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. VII. Then lonely be my latest hour, 66 VIII. Ay, but to die, and go," alas! Where all have gone, and all must go! To be the nothing that I was Ere born to life and living woe! IX. Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, STANZAS. "HEU QUANTO MINUS EST CUM RELIQUIS VERSARI QUAM TUI MEMINISSE.” I. AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though Earth received them in her bed, II. I will not ask where thou liest low Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I loved and long must love To me there needs no stone to tell, III. 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. IV. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine : The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, The silence of that dreamless sleep Nor need I to repine That all those charms have pass'd away; I might have watch'd through long decay. V. The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd |