Who renders vain their deep desire ?——A God, a God their severance ruled ! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. 6. ABSENCE IN this fair stranger's eyes of grey Had borne me far from thee. This is the curse of life! that not Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot But each day brings its petty dust I struggle towards the light; and ye, If with the light ye cannot be, I bear that ye remove. I struggle towards the light-but oh, Upon time's barren, stormy flow, 7. THE TERRACE AT BERNE (COMPOSED TEN YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING) TEN years!—and to my waking eye The clouds are on the Oberland, The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; And from the blue twin-lakes it comes, The house and is my Marguerite there? Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush thy home; Aug Suggest. (Or hast thou long since wander'd back, Doth riotous laughter now replace pebbles of Jover Beach? Or is it over?-art thou dead?— Could from earth's ways that figure slight Or shall I find thee still, but changed, Pass'd through the crucible of time; With spirit vanish'd, beauty waned, I will not know! For wherefore try, For which they were not meant, to give? Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass Man meets man-meets, and quits again. I knew it when my life was young; THE STRAYED REVELLER THE PORTICO OF CÍRCE'S PALACE. EVENING A Youth. Circe The Youth FASTER, faster, O Circe, Goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul! Thou standest, smiling Down on me! thy right arm, Lean'd up against the column there, Props thy soft cheek; Thy left holds, hanging loosely, The deep cup, ivy-cinctured, I held but now. Is it, then, evening So soon? I see, the night-dews, Cluster'd in thick beads, dim Circe Whence art thou, sleeper? The Youth When the white dawn first Passing out, from the wet turf, I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, Came swift down to join The rout early gather'd In the town, round the temple, Iacchus' white fane On yonder hill. Quick I pass'd, following The wood-cutters' cart-track Trembling, I enter'd; beheld The court all silent, The lions sleeping, On the altar this bowl. I drank, Goddess! And sank down here, sleeping, On the steps of thy portico. |