III.

And "Fear'st thou?" and "Fear'st thou ?”

And "Seest thou?" and "Hear'st thou ?"

And "Drive we not free

O'er the terrible sea,

I and thou?"

One boat-cloak did cover

The loved and the lover :

Their blood beats one measure,

They murmur proud pleasure
Soft and low ;-

While around the lashed ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered, and shifted
To and fro.

IV.

In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,

Like a bloodhound well beaten

The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame.

On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the grey tyrant father;
To his voice, the mad weather
Seems tame;

And, with curses as wild
As e'er clung to child,

He devotes to the blast
The best, loveliest, and last,
Of his name.

ΤΟ

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken;

Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

SONG.

I.

RARELY, rarely comest thou,

Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night?

Many a weary night and day

'Tis since thou art fled away.

II.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free,
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false ! thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

III.

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed ;

Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee that thou art not near,

And reproach thou wilt not hear.

IV.

Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure ;-

Thou wilt never come for pity,

Thou wilt come for pleasure;

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

V.

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night,

Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born.

VI.

I love snow, and all the forms

Of the radiant frost ;

I love waves and winds and storms,―
Everything almost

Which is Nature's, and may be

Untainted by man's misery.

VII.

I love tranquil solitude,

And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good.

Between thee and me

What difference? But thou dost possess

The things I seek, not love them less.

VIII.

I love Love, though he has wings,

And like light can flee;

But above all other things,

Spirit, I love thee

Thou art love and life!

Oh come!

Make once more my heart thy home!

LINES

WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

I.

WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth?

Art thou not over-bold?

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?

II.

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, dost thou laugh now he is dead?

III.

"Who has known me of old,” replied Earth,

"Or who has my story told?

It is thou who art over-bold."

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth

As she sung, "To my bosom I fold

All my sons when their knell is knolled;

And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

IV.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth:

"I grow bolder and still more bold.
The dead fill me ten-thousand-fold

Fuller of speed and splendour and mirth.
I was cloudy and sullen and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead

My heart grew warm: I feed on whom I fed.

V.

"Ay, alive and still bold," muttered Earth. "Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled

In terror and blood and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.

Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold :

And weave into his shame, which, like the dead
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."