MUTABILITY. THE flower that smiles to-day All that we wish to stay, Tempts and then flies; What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship too rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss But we, though soon they fall, Whilst skies are blue and bright, Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou-and from thy sleep Then wake to weep. FROM THE ARABIC. AN IMITATION. My faint spirit was sitting in the light It panted for thee like the hind at noon 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. ΤΟ ONE word is too often profaned I can give not what men call love, MUSIC. I PANT for the music which is divine, My heart in its thirst is a dying flower; Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine, Loosen the notes in a silver shower; Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain, I gasp, I faint, till they wake again. Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound, More, O more,-I am thirsting yet, It loosens the serpent which care has bound Upon my heart to`stifle it; The dissolving strain, through every vein, Passes into my heart and brain. As the scent of a violet withered up, Which grew by the brink of a silver lake; When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup, And mist there was none its thirst to slake And the violet lay dead while the odour flew On the wings of the wind o'er the waters blue As one who drinks from a charmed cup Of foaming, and sparkling and murmuring wine Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up, Invites to love with her kiss divine. LINES. THE cold earth slept below; With a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow, The breath of night like death did flow Beneath the sinking moon. The wintry hedge was black, The green grass was not seen, On the bare thorn's breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway track, Had bound their folds o'er many a crack Which the frost had made between. Thine eyes glowed in the glare Of the moon's dying light; As a fen-fire's beam, On a sluggish stream, Gleams dimly-so the moon shone there, And it yellowed the strings of thy tangled hair That shook in the wind of night. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved; The wind made thy bosom chill; The night did shed On thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie DEATH. DEATH is here and death is there, All around, within, beneath, First our pleasures die-and then These are dead, the debt is due, All things that we love and cherish, ΤΟ WHEN passion's trance is overpast, PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, Or like the sea on a northern shore, Have woven all the wondrous imagery Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world; Infinite depths of unknown elements Massed into one impenetrable mask; Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron. And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns In the dark space of interstellar air. LIBERTY. THE fiery mountains answer each other; Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone; The tempestuous oceans awake one another, And the ice-rocks are shaken round winter's zone When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. From a single cloud the lightning flashes, Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around, Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes, An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound Is bellowing underground. But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare, And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp; Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp To thine is a fen-fire damp. From billow and mountain and exhalation The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast; From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation, From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night In the van of the morning light. ΤΟ MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed; Yes, I was firm-thus did not thou; My baffled looks did fear yet dread To meet thy looks-I could not know How anxiously they sought to shine With soothing pity upon mine. To sit and curb the soul's mute rage Of fettered grief that dares not groan, Whilst thou alone, then not regarded, The [ ] thou alone should be, To spend years thus, and be rewarded, As thou, sweet love, requited me When none were near-Oh! I did wake From torture for that moment's sake. Upon my heart thy accents sweet Of peace and pity, fell like dew On flowers half dead;-thy lips did meet Mine tremblingly; thy dark eyes Thy soft persuasion on my brain, Reserve or censure come not near Our sacred friendship, lest there be No solace left for thou and me. Gentle and good and mild thou art, Nor I can live if thou appear Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart Away from me, or stoop to wear The mask of scorn, although it be To hide the love thou feel for me. ΤΟ MUSIC, when soft voices die, Love itself shall slumber oǹ. 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 Claspest the limits of mortality! more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore, Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, LINES. THAT time is dead for ever, child, Drowned, frozen, dead for ever! We look on the past And stare aghast At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, Of hopes which thou and I beguiled To death on life's dark river. The stream we gazed on then, rolled by; Its waves are unreturning; But we yet stand In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory A SONG. A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind kept on above, The freezing stream below. No news of your false spring Vultures, who build your bowers DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. ORPHAN hours, the year is dead, Come and sigh, come and weep! Merry hours, smile instead, For the year is but asleep. See, it smiles as it is sleeping, Mocking your untimely weeping. As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So White Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the death-cold year to-day; Solemn hours! wait aloud For your mother in her shroud. 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. January grey is here, Like a sexton by her grave: February bears the bier, March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O ye hours, Follow with May's fairest flowers. January 1st, 1821. MONT BLANC. LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. I. THE everlasting universe, of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river |