Another Orpheus sings agai,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more.
Calypso for his native shore.

O, write no more the tale of Troy,

If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy

Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew

Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn

Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,

O might it die or rest at last!

TO EDWARD WILLIAMS.

I.

THE serpent is shut out from paradise.

The wounded deer must seek the herb no more
In which its heart-cure lies:

The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower
Like that from which its mate with feignèd sighs
Fled in the April hour.

I too must seldom seek again
Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

II.

Of hatred I am proud, - with scorn content;
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

Griefs that should sleep, and hopes 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Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV.

When I return to my cold home, you ask

Why I am not as I have ever been.

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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.

V.

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot

With various flowers, and every one still said,

"She loves me - loves me not."

And if this meant a vision long since fled

If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought-
If it meant, but I dread

To speak what you may know too well:

Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

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,

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And thus at length find rest.

Doubtless there is a place of peace

Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

VII.

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed

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.

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1821.

40

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SONG.

"A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love

Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

"There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound."

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Might then have charmed his agony As I another's— my heart bleeds

For thine.

III.

"Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of

The dead and the unborn

Forget thy life and love;

Forget that thou must wake for ever:

Forget the world's dull scorn;

Forget lost health, and the divine

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"The spell is done. How feel you now?" "Better Quite well," replied

The sleeper. — “What would do

You good when suffering and awake?
What cure your head and side ? —”

"What would cure, that would kill me, Jane:

And as I must on earth abide

Awhile, yet tempt me not to break

My chain."

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