DEATH UNDREADED

DEATH stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

MEMORY

THE Mother of the Muses, we are taught, Is Memory she has left me; they remain, And shake my shoulder, urging me to sing About the summer days, my loves of old. Alas! alas! is all I can reply.

Memory has left with me that name alone, Harmonious name, which other bards may sing,

But her bright image in my darkest hour Comes back, in vain comes back, call'd or uncall'd.

Forgotten are the names of visitors
Ready to press my hand but yesterday;
Forgotten are the names of earlier friends
Whose genial converse and glad counte-

nance

Are fresh as ever to mine ear and eye;
To these, when I have written and besought
Remembrance of me, the word Dear alone
Hangs on the upper verge, and waits in

vain.

A blessing wert thou, O oblivion,

If thy stream carried only weeds away, But vernal and autumnal flowers alike It hurries down to wither on the strand.

FOR AN EPITAPH AT FIESOLE

Lo! where the four mimosas blend their shade

In calm repose at last is Landor laid; For ere he slept he saw them planted here

By her his soul had ever held most dear, And he had liv'd enough when he had dried her tear.

THE SEA

THE sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be ;
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go ;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, O, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow.