VOL. IV. AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND fair. And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, It is enough for me to prove That what I loved, and long must love, To me there needs no stone to tell, Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, 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 lowers, 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; S The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Though by no hand untimely snatch'd, And yet it were a greater grief Since earthly eye but ill can bear I know not if I could have borne The night that follow'd such a morn Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd, As stars that shoot along the sky As once I wept, if I could weep, Yet how much less it were to gain, The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread Eternity Returns again to me, And more thy buried love endears February, 1812. FROM 'THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.' Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime! Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye; Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done? Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell [From The Hebrew Melodies.] I. SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; X One shade the more, one ray the less, Or softly lightens o'er her face; And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, A mind at peace with all below, II. OH! SNATCH'D AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM. Oh! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom, Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And oft by yon blue gushing stream Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, And lingering pause and lightly tread; Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead! Away! we know that tears are vain, That death nor heeds nor hears distress: Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? FROM PARISINA.' It is the hour when from the boughs Seem sweet in every whisper'd word; And on the leaf a browner hue, As twilight melts beneath the moon away. STANZAS FOR MUSIC. There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me: When, as if its sound were causing And the midnight moon is weaving So the spirit bows before thee, With a full but soft emotion, Like the swell of Summer's ocean. |