And the lightning of scorn laughed forth All my sons when their knell is knolled, And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead. "Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth, "I grow bolder and still more bold. The dead fill me ten thousand fold Till by the spirit of the mighty dead My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed. Aye, alive and still bold," muttered Earth, 66 'Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled, In terror and blood and gold, A torrent of ruin to death from his birth. Leave the millions who follow to mould And weave into his shame, which like the dead DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. L ORPHAN hours, the year is dead, For the year is but asleep. See, it smiles as it is sleeping. II. As an earthquake rocks a corse So White Winter, that rough nurse, For your mother in her shroud. III. As the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days Rocks the year :— be calm and mild, Trembling hours, she will arise With new love within her eyes. IV. January grey is here, Like a sexton by her grave; March with grief doth howl and rave. TO NIGHT. I. SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Where all the long and lone daylight, II. Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; Kiss her until she be wearied out, Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand Come, long sought! Tyrre Jeai came and cried Tay sweet said Sleep, the firmy-eyed Mammed Ice a noon-tide bee, Stal I beste bear thy side? Wolds for me? And I replied, Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon Seep will come when thou art filed; Come soon, soon! TO EMILIA VIVIANI. MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me Embleming love and health, which never yet 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. 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? |