SLEEP AND DEATH. They. WE strew these opiate flowers She. They were stript from Orient bowers, Calm and deep, Like their's who fell-not ours who weep! Away, unlovely dreams! Away, false shapes of sleep! Clear, and bright, and deep! Soft as love, and calm as death, Sweet as a summer night without a breath. They. Sleep, sleep! our song is laden She. It was sung by a Samian maiden, That calm sleep Whence none may wake, where none shall weep. I touch thy temples pale! I breathe my soul on thee! All my joy should be Dead, and I would live to weep, So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep. Hellas. 46 Songs Consecrate to Liberty." TO WORDSWORTH. POET of Nature, thou has wept to know Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, THE SNAKE AND EAGLE. WHEN the last hope of trampled France had failed From visions of despair I rose, and scaled Whose caverned base with the vext surge was hoary; So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder The forests and the floods, and all around Darkness more dread than night was poured upon the ground. Hark! 'tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps Earth and the ocean. See the lightnings yawn Deluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps Glitter and boil beneath: it rages on, One mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown, Lightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by. There is a pause the sea-birds, that were gone Into their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy What calm has fall'n on earth, what light is in the sky. For, where the irresistible storm had cloven Earth and the upper air, the vast clouds fled, Countless and swift as leaves on autumn's tempest shed. For ever, as the war became more fierce Between the whirlwinds and the rack on high, That spot grew more serene; blue light did pierce The woof of those white clouds, which seemed to lie Far, deep, and motionless; while thro' the sky The pallid semicircle of the moon Past on, in slow and moving majesty ; Its upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon But slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of noon. I could not choose but gaze; a fascination Of what I knew not, I remained :--the hue Even like a bark, which from a chasm of mountains, Dark, vast, and overhanging, on a river Which there collects the strength of all its fountains, Comes forth, whilst with the speed its frame doth quiver, Sails, oars, and stream, tending to one endeavour; So, from that chasm of light a wingèd Form On all the winds of heaven approaching ever Floated, dilating as it came: the storm Pursued it with fierce blasts, and lightnings swift and warm. A course precipitous, of dizzy speed, Suspending thought and breath; a monstrous sight! An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight :—— The Eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right, A shaft of light upon its wings descended, The Serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin Shifted and glanced before the Eagle's stedfast eye. |