For me, degenerate modern wretch, Though in the genial month of May, My dripping limbs I faintly stretch, And think I've done a feat to-day. But since he cross'd the rapid tide, 'Twere hard to say who fared the best : Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you! He lost his labour, I my jest ; For he was drown'd, and I've the ague. ΙΟ 20 May 9, 1810. MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART Ζώη μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ, MAID of Athens, ere we part, Give, oh give me back my heart! By those tresses unconfined, By that lip I long to taste; What words can never speak so well; Ζώη μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ. 10 Maid of Athens! I am gone: Think of me, sweet! when alone. Athens holds my heart and soul: Ζώη μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ. No! Athens, 1810. ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM FREE ONE struggle more, and I am free From pangs that rend my heart in twain; It suits me well to mingle now With things that never pleased before : Though every joy is fled below, What future grief can touch me more? Then bring me wine, the banquet bring; That smiles with all, and weeps with none. It never would have been, but thou Hast fled, and left me lonely here; Thou'rt nothing-all are nothing now. In vain my lyre would lightly breathe! Though gay companions o'er the bowl On many a lone and lovely night 20 ΤΟ 20 And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon, When sailing o'er the Ægean wave, 'Now Thyrza gazes on that moon Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave! When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed, And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, ""Tis comfort still," I faintly said, 66 That Thyrza cannot know my pains : My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! My Thyrza's pledge in better days, When love and life alike were new! Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! EUTHANASIA WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring No band of friends or heirs be there, To feel, or feign, decorous woe. 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 tear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour In her who lives, and him who dies. 'Twere 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 ceas'd to lower, Ay, but to die, and go," alas ! Where all have gone, and all must go! To be the nothing that I was Ere born to life and living woe! Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, ΙΟ 20 30 AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR 66 'Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!" AND thou art dead, as young and fair 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, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, 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, And canst not alter now. The love where Death has set his seal, Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, 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 : ΙΟ 20 The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, 30 Shall never more be thine. |