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What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.

II

Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all

Which ours we call.

III

Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou-and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.

LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON

WHAT! alive and so bold, oh earth?

Art thou not overbold?

What! leapest thou forth as of old In the light of thy morning mirth, The last of the flock of the starry fold? Ha! leapest thou forth as of old? Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,

And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

How! is not thy quick heart cold?

What spark is alive on thy hearth? How! is not his death-knell knolled?

And livest thou still, Mother Earth? Thou wert warming thy fingers old O'er the embers covered and cold

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled--What, Mother, do you laugh now he is

dead?

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As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, "Who has known me of old," replied Staining that Heaven with obscene

Earth,

imagery

Of their own likeness.

numbers knit

By force or custom? would be,

What are

Trembling at that where I had stood
before;

Man who man When will return the glory of your prime?
No more-
-Oh, never more!

Must rule the empire of himself; in it Must be supreme, establishing his throne On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

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II

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter
hoar,

Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight

No more--Oh, never more!

REMEMBRANCE

1

SWIFTER far than summer's flight-Swifter far than youth's delight-Swifter far than happy night,

Art thou come and goneAs the earth when leaves are dead, As the heart when joy is fled, As the night when sleep is sped,

I am left lone, alone.

II

The swallow summer comes again-
The owlet night resumes her reign—
But the wild-swan youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou. —
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.

III

Lilies for a bridal bed-
Roses for a matron's head-
Violets for a maiden dead-

Pansies let my flowers be:
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear--
Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

TO EDWARD WILLIAMS

I

THE serpent is shut out from paradise.

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If it meant, but I dread

To speak what you may know too well :

Of hatred I am proud,-with scorn con- Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

tent;

Indifference, that once hurt me,
now is grown
Itself indifferent.

But, not to speak of love, pity alone Can break a spirit already more than bent.

The miserable one

Turns the mind's poison into food,— Its medicine is tears,-its evil good.

III

Therefore, if now I see you seldomer, Dear friends, dear friend! know that I only fly

Your looks, because they stir

VI

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home;

No bird so wild but has its quiet

nest,

When it no more would roam; The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast

Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,

And thus at length find rest. Doubtless there is a place of peace Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

VII

Griefs that should sleep, and hopes I asked her, yesterday, if she believed

that cannot die:

The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear, yet I,

So deeply is the arrow gone,

Should quickly perish if it were with

drawn.

IV

When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have ever been.
You spoil me for the task
Of acting a forced part in life's dull

scene,

Of wearing on my brow the idle mask Of author, great or mean,

In the world's carnival. I sought Peace thus, and but in you I found it

not.

That I had resolution. One who

had

Would ne'er have thus relieved His heart with words,-but what

his judgment bade

Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved.

These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know, Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

ΤΟ

I

ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained

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Where Strength and Beauty met to- Fairies! sprites! and angels keep her!

gether,

Kindle their image like a star

In a sea of glassy weather.

Holiest powers, permit no wrong! And return, to wake the sleeper,

Dawn, ere it be long.

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