When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed, "That Thyrza cannot know my pains: My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! My Thyrza's pledge in better days, Is silent-ah, were mine as still! Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! To that which cannot quit the dead? EUTHANASIA. WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o'er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, But silent let me sink to earth, With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power In her who lives and him who dies. 'T were sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see: Forgetful of its struggles past, E'en Pain itself should smile on thee. But vain the wish for Beauty still Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. Then lonely be my latest hour, Without regret, without a groan; For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, 'Ay, but to die, and go," alas! Ere born to life and living woe! Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, AND THOU ART DEAD. "Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse ! " AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though earth received them in her bed, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low, Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: 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 Who didst not change through all the past, The love where Death has set his seal, 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, 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 The day without a cloud hath pass'd, And thou wert lovely to the last; Extinguish'd, not decay'd; As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high. As once I wept, if I could weep, To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, Uphold thy drooping head; Yet how much less it were to gain, Though thou hast left me free The loveliest things that still remain Than thus remember thee! The all of thine that cannot die |