A new Ulysses leaves once more 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 splendor of its prime; 20 25 And leave, if naught so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give. 30 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, 35 But votive tears and symbol flowers. Oh, 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, 40 WHEN THE LAMP IS SHATTERED When the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead; When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, 5 5 Loved accents are soon forgot. ΙΟ 15 O Love! who bewailest The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest Now, in humbler, happier lot, For your cradle, your home, and your Imprisoned, for some fault of his, bier? Its passions will rock thee As the storms rock the ravens on high: Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come. WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE Ariel to Miranda:-Take This slave of Music, for the sake When you die, the silent Moon, Is not sadder in her cell When you live again on earth, Many changes have been run, In a body like a grave;- The artist who this idol wrought, To live in happier form again: 35 40 45 55 From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, The artist wrought this loved Guitar, Of the plains and of the skies, And pattering rain, and breathing dew, 60 65 70 That seldom-heard mysterious sound, 75 All this it knows, but will not tell 30 Since Ferdinand and you begun The winds of heaven blew, the ocean rolled For simple sheep: and such are daffodils 15 Its gathering waves-ye felt it not. The With the green world they live in; and blue Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew Of summer nights collected still to make 30 The morning precious: beauty was awake! clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; 21 All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. Nor do we merely feel these essences 25 For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, 31 That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, 35 They alway must be with us, or we die. 45 Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly Singest of summer in full-throated I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45 White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50 |