SONG, ON A FADED VIOLET. I. THE odour from the flower is gone, Which like thy kisses breathed on me ; The colour from the flower is flown, Which glowed of thee, and only thee ! II. A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, It lies on my abandoned breast, And mocks the heart which yet is warm With cold and silent rest. III. I weep - my tears revive it not! I sigh-it breathes no more on me; Its mute and uncomplaining lot Is such as mine should be. STANZAS. WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES. 1. THE sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might, The breath of the moist earth is light, Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. п. I see the Deep's untrampled floor With green and purple seaweed strown; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: The lightning of the noon-tide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. III. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, And walked with inward glory crowned - Smiling they live and call life pleasure ;To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. IV. Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, Which I have borne and yet must bear, Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. V. Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Insults with this untimely moan; They might lament - for I am one Whom men love not, — and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. THE PAST. I. WILT thou forget the happy hours Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. II. Forget the dead, the past? O yet There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom, And with ghastly whispers tell That joy, once lost, is pain. PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. LISTEN, listen, Mary mine, To the whisper of the Apennine, It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, By the captives pent in the cave below. Is a mighty mountain dim and grey, And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. |