I struggle towards the light-but oh, While yet the night is chill, Upon time's barren, stormy flow, Stay with me, Marguerite, still! 7. THE TERRACE AT BERNE. (COMPOSED TEN YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.) TEN years and to my waking eye Once more the roofs of Berne appear; The rocky banks, the terrace high, The stream and do I linger here? The clouds are on the Oberland, The Jungfrau snows look faint and far; But bright are those green fields at hand, And through those fields comes down the Aar, And from the blue twin-lakes it comes, Ah, shall I see thee, while a flush And clap thy hands, and cry: 'Tis thou! Or hast thou long since wander'd back, Doth riotous laughter now replace Or is it over?-art thou dead?— Could from earth's ways that figure slight Fail from earth's air, and I not know? Or shall I find thee still, but changed, With spirit vanish'd, beauty waned, And hardly yet a glance, a tone, I will not know! For wherefore try, For which they were not meant, to give? Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man meets man-meets, and quits again. I knew it when my life was young; I feel it still, now youth is o'er. -The mists are on the mountain hung, And Marguerite I shall see no more. 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, The bright procession 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, The deep cup, ivy-cinctured, I held but now. |