THE TRAGEDY OF LOVE SONG 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: 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, 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 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, No song when the spirit is mute- Like the wind through a ruined cell, That ring the dead seaman's knell. When hearts have once mingled, 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 But waft thy name beyond the sky. Porphyria's Lover These lips are mute, these eyes are dry: But in my breast and in my brain The thought that ne'er shall sleep again. 983 George Gordon Byron [1788-1824] PORPHYRIA'S LOVER THE rain set early in to-night, She shut the cold out and the storm, Which done, she rose, and from her form And, last, she sat down by my side 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, To set its struggling passion free A sudden thought of one so pale For love of her, and all in vain: So, she was come through wind and rain. Happy and proud; at last I knew In one long yellow string I wound About her neck; her cheek once more 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 all night long we have not stirred, Robert Browning [1812-1889] MODERN BEAUTY I AM the torch, she saith, and what to me La Belle Dame Sans Merci But live with that clear light of perfect fire I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen Troy burn, and the most loving knight lies dead. I live, and am immortal; in my eyes 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, The sedge has withered from the lake, O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever-dew, I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful-a fairy's child, |