("O! dis-moi, tu veux fuir?")

[Bk. IV, vii., Jan. 31, 1821.]


Forget? Can I forget the scented breath
Of breezes, sighing of thee, in mine ear;
The strange awaking from a dream of death,
The sudden thrill to find thee coming near?
Our huts were desolate, and far away
I heard thee calling me throughout the day,
No one had seen thee pass,
Trembling I came. Alas!
    Can I forget?

Once I was beautiful; my maiden charms
Died with the grief that from my bosom fell.
Ah! weary traveller! rest in my loving arms!
Let there be no regrets and no farewell!
Here of thy mother sweet, where waters flow,
Here of thy fatherland we whispered low;
    Here, music, praise, and prayer
    Filled the glad summer air.
    Can I forget?

0 Lord, at Joseph's humble bench
Thy hands did handle saw and plane;
Thy hammer nails did drive and clench,
Avoiding knot and humouring grain.

That thou didst seem, thou wast indeed,
In sport thy tools thou didst not use;
Nor, helping hind's or fisher's need,
The labourer's hire, too nice, refuse.

Lord, might I be but as a saw,
A plane, a chisel, in thy hand!--
No, Lord! I take it back in awe,
Such prayer for me is far too grand.

I pray, O Master, let me lie,
As on thy bench the favoured wood;
Thy saw, thy plane, thy chisel ply,
And work me into something good.

No, no; ambition, holy-high,
Urges for more than both to pray:
Come in, O gracious Force, I cry--
O workman, share my shed of clay.

Then I, at bench, or...

I do not wish to win your vow
To take me soon or late as bride,
And lift me from the nook where now
I tarry your farings to my side.
I am blissful ever to abide
In this green labyrinth let all be,
If but, whatever may betide,
You do not leave off loving me!

Your comet-comings I will wait
With patience time shall not wear through;
The yellowing years will not abate
My largened love and truth to you,
Nor drive me to complaint undue
Of absence, much as I may pine,
If never another 'twixt us two
Shall come, and you stand wholly mine.

            'Twas on a day
When the immortals at their banquet lay;
            The bowl
    Sparkled with starry dew,
The weeping of those myriad urns of light,
    Within whose orbs, the Almighty Power,
    At nature's dawning hour,
Stored the rich fluid of ethereal soul.
            Around,
Soft odorous clouds, that upward wing their flight
            From eastern isles
(Where they have bathed them in the orient ray,
And with rich fragrance all their bosoms filled).
In circles flew, and, melting as they flew,
A liquid daybreak o'er the board distilled.

            All, all was luxury!
    All must be luxury, where Lyaeus smiles.
        His locks divine
            Were crowned
        With a bright meteor-braid,
Which, lik...

Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet;
Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet.
There, wrapp'd in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,
Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again.

All that I sung still to her praise did tend,
Still she was first; still she my songs did end;
Yet she my love and music both doth fly,
The music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy.
Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight:
It shall suffice that they were breath'd and died for her delight.

Hurrah! the Season's past at last;
At length we've "done" our pleasure.
Dear "Pater," if you only knew
How much I've longed for home and you,--
Our own green lawn and leisure!

And then the pets! One half forgets
The dear dumb friends--in Babel.
I hope my special fish is fed;--
I long to see poor Nigra's head
Pushed at me from the stable!

I long to see the cob and "Rob,"--
Old Bevis and the Collie;
And won't we read in "Traveller's Rest"!
Home readings after all are best;--
None else seem half so "jolly!"

One misses your dear kindly store
Of fancies quaint and funny;
One misses, too, your kind bon-mot;--
The Mayfair wit I mostly know
Has more of gall than honey!

How tired one grows of "calls and balls!"
This "tou...

Set not thy foot on graves;
Hear what wine and roses say;
The mountain chase, the summer waves,
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.

Set not thy foot on graves;
Nor seek to unwind the shroud
Which charitable Time
And Nature have allowed
To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.

Set not thy foot on graves;
Care not to strip the dead
Of his sad ornament,
His myrrh, and wine, and rings,

His sheet of lead,
And trophies buried:
Go, get them where he earned them when alive;
As resolutely dig or dive.

Life is too short to waste
In critic peep or cynic bark,
Quarrel or reprimand:
'T will soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark!

    Could there be words found to expresse my losse,
There were some hope, that this my heauy crosse
Might be sustained, and that wretched I
Might once finde comfort: but to haue him die
Past all degrees that was so deare to me;
As but comparing him with others, hee
Was such a thing, as if some Power should say
I'le take Man on me, to shew men the way
What a friend should be. But words come so short
Of him, that when I thus would him report,
I am vndone, and hauing nought to say,
Mad at my selfe, I throwe my penne away,
And beate my breast, that there should be a woe
So high, that words cannot attaine thereto.
T'is strange that I from my abundant breast,
Who others sorrowes haue so well exprest:
Yet I by this in little time am growne
So poore, that I want...

In controversial foul impureness
The peace that is thy light to thee
Quench not: in faith and inner sureness
Possess thy soul and let it be.

No violence—perverse—persistent—
What cannot be can bring to be;
No zeal what is make more existent,
And strife but blinds the eyes that see.

What though in blood their souls embruing,
The great, the good and wise they curse,
Still sinning, what they know not doing;
Stand still, forbear, nor make it worse.

By curses, by denunciation,
The coming fate they cannot stay;
Nor thou, by fiery indignation,
Though just, accelerate the day.

1.

Oh! did those eyes instead of fire,
With bright, but mild affection shine,
Though they might kindle less desire,
Love, more than mortal, would be thine.

2.

For thou art form'd so heavenly fair,
Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam,
We must admire, but still despair,
That fatal glance forbids esteem.

3.

When nature stamp'd thy beauteous birth,
So much perfection in thee shone,
She fear'd, that too divine for earth,
The skies might claim thee for their own.

4.

Therefore to guard her dearest work,
Lest angels might dispute the prize,
She bade a secret lightning lurk,
Within those once celestial eyes.

5.

These might the boldest Sylph appal,
When gleaming with meridian blaze,
...

Now stands Soracte white with snow, now bend the laboring trees,
And with the sharpness of the frost the stagnant rivers freeze.
Pile up the billets on the hearth, to warmer cheer incline,
And draw, my Thaliarchus, from the Sabine jar the wine.

The rest leave to the gods, who still the fiercely warring wind,
And to the morrow's store of good or evil give no mind.
Whatever day your fortune grants, that day mark up for gain;
And in your youthful bloom do not the sweet amours disdain.

Now on the Campus and the squares, when evening shades descend,
Soft whisperings again are heard, and loving voices blend;
And now the low delightful laugh betrays the lurking maid,
While from her slowly yielding arms the forfeiture is paid.

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his fickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.

    Sweet, uncultivated blossom,
    Reared in Spring's refreshing dews,
    Dear to every gazer's bosom,
    Fair to every eye that views;--
    Opening bud, whose youth can charm us,
    Thine be many a happy hour:
    Spreading rose, whose beauties warm us--
    Flourish long, my lovely flower.

    Though pride look disdainful on thee,
    Scorning scenes so mean as thine,
    Although fortune frown upon thee,
    Lovely blossom, ne'er repine:
    Health unbought is ever with thee,
    Which their wealth can never gain;
    Innocence doth garments give thee,
    Such as fashion apes in vain.

    When fit time and reason grant thee
    Leave to quit the parent tree,
    May some happy hand transplant thee
    To a station suiting t...

It is not the fear of death
    That damps my brow;
It is not for another breath
    I ask thee now;
I can die with a lip unstirr'd
    And a quiet heart -
Let but this prayer be heard
    Ere I depart.

I can give up my mother's look -
    My sister's kiss;
I can think of love - yet brook
    A death like this!
I can give up the young fame
    I burn'd to win -
All - but the spotless name
    I glory in!

Thine is the power to give,
    Thine to deny,
Joy for the hour I live -
    Calmness to die.
By all the brave should cherish,
    By my dying breath,
I ask that I may perish
    With a soldier's death!

    They were parted then at last?
    Was it duty, or force, or fate?
    Or did a worldly blast
    Blow-to the meeting-gate?

    An old, short story is this!
    A glance, a trembling, a sigh,
    A gaze in the eyes, a kiss--
    Why will it not go by!

To Monseigneur The Duke De Bourgogne.[1]

Dear prince, a special favourite of the skies,
Pray let my incense from your altars rise.
With these her gifts, if rather late my muse,
My age and labours must her fault excuse.
My spirit wanes, while yours beams on the sight
At every moment with augmented light:
It does not go - it runs, - it seems to fly;
And he from whom it draws its traits so high,
In war a hero,[2] burns to do the same.
No lack of his that, with victorious force,
His giant strides mark not his glory's course:
Some god retains: our sovereign I might name;
Himself no less than conqueror divine,
Whom one short month made master of the Rhine.
It needed then upon the foe to dash;
Perhaps, to-day, such generalship were rash.

In futurity
I prophetic see
That the earth from sleep
(Grave the sentence deep)

Shall arise, and seek
for her Maker meek;
And the desert wild
Become a garden mild.

In the southern clime,
Where the summer's prime
Never fades away,
Lovely Lyca lay.

Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told.
She had wandered long,
Hearing wild birds' song.

"Sweet sleep, come to me
Underneath this tree;
Do father, mother, weep?
Where can Lyca sleep?

"Lost in desert wild
Is your little child.
How can Lyca sleep
If her mother weep?

"If her heart does ache,
Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.

"Frowning, frowning night,
O'er this desert bright
Let thy moon ...

In a cool curving world he lies
And ripples with dark ecstasies.
The kind luxurious lapse and steal
Shapes all his universe to feel
And know and be; the clinging stream
Closes his memory, glooms his dream,
Who lips the roots o' the shore, and glides
Superb on unreturning tides.
Those silent waters weave for him
A fluctuant mutable world and dim,
Where wavering masses bulge and gape
Mysterious, and shape to shape
Dies momently through whorl and hollow,
And form and line and solid follow
Solid and line and form to dream
Fantastic down the eternal stream;
An obscure world, a shifting world,
Bulbous, or pulled to thin, or curled,
Or serpentine, or driving arrows,
Or serene slidings, or March narrows.
There slipping wave and shore are one,
...