7. THE TERRACE AT BERNE (COMPOSED TEN YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING) TEN years!—and to my waking eye The clouds are on the Oberland, And from the blue twin-lakes it comes, Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush Or hast thou long since wander'd back, Where feet like thine too lightly come? Doth riotous laughter now replace Or is it over ?-art thou dead ?— Could from earth's ways that figure slight Or shall I find thee still, but changed, Pass'd through the crucible of time; With spirit vanish'd, beauty waned, I will not know! For wherefore try, For which they were not meant, to give? Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass Man meets man-meets, and quits again. I knew it when my life was young; THE STRAYED REVELLER THE PORTICO OF CIRCE'S PALACE. EVENING A Youth. Circe The Youth FASTER, faster, O Circe, Goddess, Let the wild, thronging train, Of eddying forms, Sweep through my soul! Thou standest, smiling Down on me! thy right arm, Lean'd up against the column there, Props thy soft cheek; Thy left holds, hanging loosely, I held but now. Is it, then, evening So soon? I see, the night-dews, Cluster'd, in thick beads, dim Circe Whence art thou, sleeper? The Youth When the white dawn first I sprang up, I threw round me My dappled fawn-skin ; Passing out, from the wet turf, Where they lay, by the hut door, I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, All drench'd in dew Came swift down to join The rout early gather'd In the town, round the temple, Iacchus' white fane On yonder hill. |