Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, Dammed it up with roots knotted like water snakes. And hour by hour, when the air was still, The vapours arose which have strength to kill : And unctuous meteors from spray to spray The Sensitive Plant like one forbid For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon For Winter came: the wind was his whip: He had torn the cataracts from the hills And they clanked at his girdle like manacles; His breath was a chain which without a sound Then the weeds which were forms of living death And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant First there came down a thawing rain And a northern whirlwind, wandering about When winter had gone and spring came back The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck; But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels, Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. CONCLUSION. Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that Whether that lady's gentle mind, I dare not guess; but in this life It is a modest creed, and yet To own that death itself must be, That garden sweet, that lady fair, And all sweet shapes and odours there, In truth have never past away: 'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they. For love, and beauty, and delight, Last Love Poems. TO EDWARD WILLIAMS. THE serpent is shut out from paradise. The wounded deer must seek the herb no more The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower I too must seldom seek again Near happy friends a mitigated pain. 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. Therefore, if now I see you seldomer, Dear friends, dear friend! know that I only fly Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot The very comfort that they minister So deeply is the arrow gone, Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn. When I return to my cold home, you ask 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. 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. 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, And thus at length find rest. Doubtless there is a place of peace Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease. |