CXVI. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep, CXVII. Fantastically tangled; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass Flowers, fresh in hue, and many in their class, The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems colour'd by its skies. Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating CXIX. And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, And love, which dies, as it was born, in sighing, The purity of heaven to earthly joys, The dull satiety which all destroys And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? CXX. Alas! our young affections run to waste, CXXI. O love! no habitant of earth thou art- Even with its own desiring phantasy, And to a thought such shape and image given, As haunts the unquench'd soul, parch'd—wearied—wrung—and riven. CXXII. Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation :—where, Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized? In him alone. Can nature show so fair? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men— The unreach'd paradise of our despair Which o'erinforms the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? CXXIII. Who loves, raves-'t is youth's frenzy—but the cure Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such, yet still it binds, The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ; Seems ever near the prize,―wealthiest when most undone. CXXIV. We wither from our youth, we gasp away- And death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. CXXV. Few-none-find what they love or could have loved, Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, Whose touch turns hope to dust,—the dust we all have trod. CXXVI. Our life is a false nature-'t is not in The harmony of things,—this hard decree, This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly 57't is a base Our right of thought-our last and only place Is chain'd and tortured-cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. CXXVIII. Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moon-beams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. CXXX. O time! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter And only healer when the heart hath bled- My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift: CXXXI. Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temple more divinely desolate, Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Ruins of years-though few, yet full of fate :— If thou hast ever seen me too elate, Hear me not but if calmly I have borne Good, and reserved my pride against the hate Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn This iron in my soul in vain-shall they not mourn? CXXXII. And thou, who never yet of human wrong Had it but been from hands less dear-in this Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust! Dost thou not hear my heart?—Awake! thou shalt, and must. CXXXIII. It is not that I may not have incurr'd, The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, But let that pass-I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. CXXXIV. And if my voice break forth, 't is not that now Not in the air shall these my words disperse, CXXXV. That curse shall be forgiveness-Have I not— Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. |