IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN. Nor deem that memory less dear, If not the goblet pass unquaff'd, From all her troubled visions free, For wert thou vanish'd from my mind, Where could my vacant bosom turn? And who would then remain behind To honour thine abandon'd Urn? No, no-it is my sorrow's pride That last dear duty to fulfil; Though all the world forget beside, "Tis meet that I remember still. For well I know, that such had been A blessing never meant for me; March 14, 1812. 167 STANZAS FOR MUSIC. THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; "Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happi ness Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess : The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again. Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears. Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath. Oh could I feel as I have felt,- -or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene; As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So, midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me. DARKNESS. March, 1815. I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Of this their desolation; and all hearts The brows of men by the despairing light The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept ; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Of famine fed upon all entrails-men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; DARKNESS. And they were enemies: they met beside Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died- And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surge— The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, Diodati, July, 1816. 171 |