And walked with inward glory crowned- Smiling they live and call life pleasure;- cup has been dealt in another measure. Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Some might lament that I were cold, They might lament—for I am one Whom men love not, and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. December, 1818. AUTUMN: A DIRGE. THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling; Come, months, come away; Put on white, black, and grey, Let your light sisters play Ye, follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. HYMN OF APOLLO. THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam ; My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Fly me, and from the glory of my ray I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, For grief that I depart they weep and frown: What look is more delightful than the smile With which I soothe them from the western isle? I am the eye with which the Universe All harmony of instrument or verse, All prophesy, all medicine are mine, HYMN OF PAN. FROM the forests and highlands We come, we come; From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, Listening to my sweet pipings. Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing The light of the dying day, Speeded by my sweet pipings. The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, To the edge of the moist river-lawns, And the brink of the dewy caves, And all that did then attend and follow With envy of my sweet pipings. *This and the former poem were written at the request of a friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. Apollo and Pan contended before Tmolus for the prize in music. |