Even for the least division of an hour
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind

To my most grievous loss ?-That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more ;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
W. WORDSWORTH

201

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in

thine eye;

And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there

And tell me our love is remember'd, even in the sky!

Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear

When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on the ear;

And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,

I think, O my Love! 'tis thy voice, from the Kingdom of Souls

Faintly answering still the notes that once were so

dear.

202

T. MOORE

ELEGY ON THYRZA

And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;

And forms so soft and charms so rare
Too soon return'd to Earth!

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

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
Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last,
As fervently as thou

Who didst not change through all the past
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal

Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see

Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life, were ours;

The worst can be but mine :

The sun that cheers, the storm that lours, Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;

Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away.

And yet it were a greater grief

To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade :
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed
To think I was not near, to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed:

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain
Than thus remember thee !

The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.
LORD BYRON

203

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdain'd

For thee to disdain it.

One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

204

P. B. SHELLEY

GATHERING SONG OF DONALD THE BLACK

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu

Pibroch of Donuil
Wake thy wild voice anew,
Summon Clan Conuil.
Come away, come away,
Hark to the summons!
Come in your war-array,
Gentles and commons.

Come from deep glen, and
From mountain so rocky;
The war-pipe and pennon
Are at Inverlocky.
Come every hill-plaid, and

True heart that wears one,
Come every steel blade, and
Strong hand that bears one.

Leave untended the herd,
The flock without shelter;
Leave the corpse uninterr'd,
The bride at the altar;

Leave the deer, leave the steer,
Leave nets and barges :
Come with your fighting gear,
Broadswords and targes.

Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended,

Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded :
Faster come, faster come,

Faster and faster,

Chief, vassal, page and groom,
Tenant and master.

Fast they come, fast they come ;
See how they gather !
Wide waves the eagle plume

Blended with heather:

Cast your plaids, draw your blades,

Forward each man set!

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu

Knell for the onset !

SIR W. SCOTT

205

A wet sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast

And fills the white and rustling sail
And bends the gallant mast;

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

While like the eagle free

Away the good ship flies and leaves
Old England on the lee.

O for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze

And white waves heaving high ;