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THE TRAGEDY OF LOVE

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My silks and fine array,

My smiles and languished air,

By Love are driven away;

And mournful lean Despair

Brings me yew to deck my grave:
Such end true lovers have.

His face is fair as heaven

When springing buds unfold:

O why to him was't given,

Whose heart is wintry cold?

His breast is Love's all-worshipped tomb,
Where all Love's pilgrims come.

Bring me an ax and spade,

Bring me a winding-sheet;

When I my grave have made,

Let winds and tempests beat:

Then down I'll lie, as cold as clay:

True love doth pass away!

William Blake [1757-1827]

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE

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,

Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendor

Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute-
No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possessed.

O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your 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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]

"FAREWELL! IF EVER FONDEST PRAYER"

FAREWELL! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal availed on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,

But waft thy name beyond the sky.
"Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh:
Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,
When wrung from guilt's expiring eye,
Are in that word-Farewell!-Farewell!

Porphyria's Lover

These lips are mute, these eyes are dry:

But in my breast and in my brain
Awake the pangs that pass not by,

The thought that ne'er shall sleep again.
My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,
Though grief and passion there rebel:
I only know we loved in vain-
I only feel-Farewell!-Farewell!

983

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

PORPHYRIA'S LOVER

THE rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

And all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me-she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,

To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

For love of her, and all in vain:

So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled, And I, its love, am gained instead! Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

MODERN BEAUTY

I AM the torch, she saith, and what to me
If the moth die of me? I am the flame
Of Beauty, and I burn that all may see
Beauty, and I have neither joy nor shame,

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

But live with that clear light of perfect fire
Which is to men the death of their desire.

I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen

Troy burn, and the most loving knight lies dead.
The world has been my mirror, time has been
My breath upon the glass; and men have said,
Age after age, in rapture and despair,
Love's poor few words, before my image there.

I live, and am immortal; in my eyes
The sorrow of the world, and on my lips
The joy of life, mingle to make me wise;
Yet now the day is darkened with eclipse:
Who is there lives for beauty? Still am I

985

The torch, but where's the moth that still dares die?

Arthur Symons [1865

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms
So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful-a fairy's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

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