TIME LONG PAST.

I.

LIKE the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is time long past.

A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was time long past.

II.

There were sweet dreams in the night Of time long past:

And, was it sadness or delight,

Each day a shadow onward cast

Which made us wish it yet might last

That time long past.

'Tis like a child's beloved corse
A father watches, till at last

Beauty is like remembrance cast
From time long past

SONNET.

YE hasten to the dead! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes

Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?
O thou quick Heart which pantest to possess

All that anticipation feigneth fair!

Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess
Whence thou didst come, and whither thou mayst go,
And that which never yet was known wouldst know—
Oh, whither hasten ye that thus ye press

With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path,
Seeking alike from happiness and woe

A refuge in the cavern of grey death?

O heart, and mind, and thoughts! What thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below?

LINES TO A REVIEWER.

ALAS! good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such an hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side. In vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.

FRAGMENT ON KEATS,

WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED

"HERE lieth One whose name was writ on water."

But, ere the breath that could erase it blew,

ADONAIS.

I.

I WEEP for Adonais - he is dead!

O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: with me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

An echo and a light unto eternity!

II.

Where wert thou mighty Mother, when he lay,

When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies In darkness? where was lorn Urania

When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,

'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise

She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies,

With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

III.

O, weep for Adonais he is dead!

Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud neart keep
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;

For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend; - oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

IV.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!

Lament anew, Urania ! — He died,

Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,

Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride,
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide,
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,

Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.

V.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew !

Not all to that bright station dared to climb;