CXCV THE FLIGHT OF LOVE THEN the lamp is shatter'd WH The light in the dust lies dead When the cloud is scatter'd, The rainbow's glory is shed. Sweet tones are remember'd not; As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, No song when the spirit is mute Like the wind through a ruin'd cell, That ring the dead seaman's knell. When hearts have once mingled, Love first leaves the well-built nest; To endure what it once possesst. O Love! who bewailest The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Its passions will rock thee As the storms rock the ravens on high; Bright reason will mock thee Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home When leaves fall and cold winds come. CXCVI P. B. Shelley THE MAID OF NEIDPATH LOVERS' eyes are sharp to see, And love, in life's extremity Can lend an hour of cheering. All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, You saw the taper shining. By fits a sultry hectic hue Across her cheek was flying; By fits so ashy pale she grew Her maidens thought her dying. Yet keenest powers to see and hear Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd He came he pass'd — an heedless gaze Could scarcely catch the feeble moan CXCVII Sir W. Scott THE MAID OF NEIDPATH E ARL March look'd on his dying child, The youth, he cried, whom I exiled She's at the window many an hour But ah! so pale, he knew her not, Though her smile on him was dwelling And am I then forgot - forgot? It broke the heart of Ellen. In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs, Her cheek is cold as ashes; Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes To lift their silken lashes. T. Campbell B CXCVIII RIGHT Star! would I were steadfast as thou art Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of snow upon the mountains and the moors : No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, or else swoon to death. And so live ever, J. Keats CXCIX THE TERROR OF DEATH HEN I have fears that I may cease to be WH Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piléd books, in charact❜ry Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain ; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, And when I feel, fair Creature of an hour! Of the wide world I stand alone, and think F. Keats CC DESIDERIA S URPRISED by joy-impatient as the wind I turn'd to share the transport -O with whom But Thee-deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love recall'd thee to my mind But how could I forget thee? through what power 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 W. Wordsworth |