Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

DEATH.

I.

THEY die-the dead return not

Misery

Sits near an open grave and calls them over, A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye

They are the names of kindred, friend and lover, Which he so feebly calls - they all are gone! Fond wretch, all dead, those vacant names alone, This most familiar scene, my pain —

These tombs alone remain.

II.

Misery, my sweetest friend

-oh! weep no more!

Thou wilt not be consoled - I wonder not! For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot Was even as bright and calm, but transitory, And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary; This most familiar scene, my pain —

These tombs alone remain.

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.

I.

THE billows on the beach are leaping around it, The bark is weak and frail,

The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it Darkly strew the gale.

Come with me, thou delightful child,

Come with me, though the wave is wild,

And the winds are loose, we must not stay,
Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.

II.

They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
They have made them unfit for thee;
They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.

To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,
And they will curse my name and thee

Because we are fearless and free.

III.

Come thou, beloved as thou art;

Another sleepeth still

Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart,

Which thou with joy shalt fill,

With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be

The dearest playmate unto thee.

IV.

Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,
Or the priests of the evil faith;
They stand on the brink of that raging river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.

V.

Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child!
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
And the cold spray and the clamour wild?·
There sit between us two, thou dearest

Me and thy mother-well we know
The storm at which thou tremblest so,
With all its dark and hungry graves,
Less cruel than the savage slaves

Who hunt us o'er these sheltering waves.

--

[ocr errors][merged small]

Sony fom skverns vie an der

Cr sik from the ralow bee?

The grass may

grow in vinter veurer

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

An equal passion to repay

They are not coy like me.

III.

Or seek some slave of power and gold,
To be thy dear heart's mate,

Thy love will move that bigot cold
Sooner than me thy hate.

IV.

A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;

I hate thy want of truth and love -
How should I then hate thee?

TO MARY

O MARY dear, that you were here
With your brown eyes bright and clear,

And your sweet voice, like a bird

Singing love to its lone mate

In the ivy bower disconsolate;

Voice the sweetest ever heard!
And your brow more...

« AnteriorContinuar »