SPOEMS WRITTEN IN 1816. THE SUNSET. THERE late was One, within whose subtle being, There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold That night the youth and lady mingled lay pale; Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins And weak articulations might be seen Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day, Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee! "Inheritor of more than earth can give, Passionless calm, and silence unreproved, Whether the dead find, O, not sleep! but rest, And are the uncomplaining things they seem, Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love; O, that like thine, mine epitaph were― -Peace!" This was the only moan she ever made. HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. THE awful shadow of some unseen Power This various world with as inconstant wing It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like clouds in starlight widely spread, Like aught that for its grace may be Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river; Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Music when soft vocero elis Such gloom; why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope. No voice from some sublimer world hath ever Remain the records of their vain endeavor; to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies That wax and wane in lovers' eyes; Thou, that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came; Depart not, lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped I was not heard, I saw them not; When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious night: They know that never joy illumed my brow, Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou, O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. The day becomes more solemn and serene |