TIME LONG PAST

I

LIKE the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.

A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.

II

There were sweet dreams in the night Of Time long past:

And, was it sadness or delight,

Each day a shadow onward cast

Which made us wish it yet might last That Time long past.

III

There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.

"Tis like a child's beloved corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance cast

From Time long past.

Time Long Past. Published by Rossetti, 1870.

BUONA NOTTE

I

"BUONA notte, buona notte!" La notte sarà buona senza te?

- Come mai

Non dirmi buona notte, chè tu sai,
La notte sà star buona da per sè.

II

Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme,
La notte quando Lilla m'abbandona ;
Pei cuori chi si batton insieme
Ogni notte, senza dirla, sarà buona.

III

Come male buona notte si suona
Con sospiri e parole interrotte! -
Il modo di aver la notte buona

E mai non di dir la buona notte.

GOOD-NIGHT

I

GOOD-NIGHT? ah, no! the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;

Buona Notte. Published by Medwin in The Angler in Wales, 1834. The text follows Rossetti's version of the Boscombe MS. Good-Night. Published by Hunt, The Literary Pocket-Book,

1822.

i.-iii. Harvard MS. Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

i. 1 Good-night? no, love! the night is ill, Stacey MS.

Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

II

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood,
Then it will be good night.

III

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.

ii. 1 How were the night without thee good, Stacey MS.

iii. 1 The hearts that on each other beat, Stacey MS., The, Har

vard MS. cancelled.

iii. 3 Have nights as good as they are sweet, Stacey MS.

iii. 4 They But, Stacey MS.

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR

I

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

II

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;

Solemn hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

III

As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year:

Dirge for the Year. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and dated January 1, 1821.

ii. 4 death-cold, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || dead-cold, Mrs. Shelley,

Trembling hours; she will arise

With new love within her eyes.

IV

January gray is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps - but, O ye hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

TIME

UNFATHOMABLE Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow

Claspest the limits of mortality,

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea?

Time. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.