Eyes that had given light and life erewhile To those above them, but now dim with tears Eternal. At that word, that sad word, joy, CORINNA, FROM ATHENS, TO TANAGRA. [From Pericles and Aspasia.] I. Tanagra! think not I forget Thy beautifully-storied streets; In clear Thermodon, and yet greets Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes. 2. I promise to bring back with me What thou with transport will receive, The only proper gift for thee, Of which no mortal shall bereave In later times thy mouldering walls, A crown, a crown from Athens won, A crown no god can wear, beside Latona's son. VOL. IV. 3. There may be cities who refuse To their own child the honours due, But ever shall those cities rue I i The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, To that young head which soon shall rise 4. Sweetly where caverned Dirce flows Do white-armed maidens chaunt my lay, To her with feet more graceful come The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home. 5. O let thy children lean aslant Against the tender mother's knee, To know what magic there can be Look up to heaven; be such my praise! Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphick bays. CLEONE TO Aspasia. We mind not how the sun in the mid-sky The revel, the entangling dance, allure, And voices mellower than the Muse's own Heap up his buoyant bosom on their wave. A little while, and then.... Ah youth! youth! youth! Listen not to my words... but stay with me! When thou art gone, Life may go too; the sigh That rises is for thee, and not for Life. THE MAID'S LAMENT. [From the Examination of Shakespeare.] I loved him not; and yet now he is gone I feel I am alone. I checked him while he spoke; yet could he speak, For reasons not to love him once I sought To vex myself and him; I now would give Who lately lived for me, and when he found He hid his face amid the shades of death. Who wasted his for me; but mine returns, With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep, Tears that had melted his soft heart; for years 'Merciful God!' such was his latest prayer, 'These may she never share!' Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold Than daisies in the mould, Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be, Ye who have toiled uphill to reach the haunt Raised on the summit by Pelasgic hands, Ye found there the viper laid And, hooting, shake the berries on your heads. If those about ye ever did the like? Twenty years hence my eyes may grow Yet yours from others they shall know Twenty years hence, though it may hap In a cool cell where thunder clap Was never heard, There breathe but o'er my arch of grass, A not too sadly sighed 'Alas!' And I shall catch ere you can pass That winged word. Lately our poets loitered in green lanes, Upon the flowers thro' which Ilissus flows. When Helen first saw wrinkles in her face That made the men as faithless. But when you Found them, or fancied them, and would not hear Or the impression of some amorous hair Say ye, that years roll on and ne'er return? |