From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

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P. B. SHELLEY.

196

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

O lovers' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing;
And love, in life's extremity,
Can lend an hour of cheering,

Disease had been in Mary's bower

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And slow decay from mourning,

Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
To watch her love's returning.

By fits so ashy pale she grew

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Her maidens thought her dying.

Yet keenest powers to see and hear
Seem'd in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear
She heard her lover's riding;

Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd
She knew and waved to greet him,
And o'er the battlement did bend
As on the wing to meet him.

He came he pass'd-an heedless gaze,
As o'er some stranger glancing;
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
Lost in his courser's prancing-

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The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
Returns each whisper spoken,
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
Which told her heart was broken.

SIR W. SCOTT.

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197

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

Earl March look'd on his dying child,
And, smit with grief to view her-
'The youth,' he cried,' whom I exiled
Shall be restored to woo her.'

She's at the window many an hour
His coming to discover:
And he look'd up to Ellen's bower
And she look'd on her lover-

But ah! so pale, he knew her not,

Though her smile on him was dwelling

'And am I then forgot-forgot?'

It broke the heart of Ellen.

In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs,
Her cheek is cold as ashes;

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Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes
To lift their silken lashes.

T. CAMPBELL.

198

Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors

No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever,-or else swoon to death.

J. KEATS.

199

THE TERROR OF DEATH

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piléd books, in charact❜ry

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Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain ; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance ; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the fairy power

Of unreflecting love-then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

200

DESIDERIA

J. KEATS.

Surprised by joy-impatient as the wind-
I turn'd to share the transport-O with whom
But Thee-deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find ?

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5

Love, faithful love recall'd thee to my mind— But how could I forget thee? Through what power

Even for the least division of an hour Have I been so beguiled as to be blind

To my most grievous loss ?—That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 10 Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more ; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. W. WORDSWORTH.

201

At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;

And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there

And tell me our love is remember'd, even in the sky!

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Then Ising the wild song it once was rapture to hear, When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on the ear;

And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,

I think, O my Love! 'tis thy voice, from the Kingdom of Souls

Faintly answering still the notes that once were so

dear.

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202

T. MOORE.

ELEGY ON THYRZA

And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft and charms so rare
Too soon return'd to Earth !

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot ;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not :

It is enough for me to prove

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10

That what I loved and long must love
Like common earth can rot;

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To me there needs no stone to tell
"Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last,
As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past

And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal

Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see

Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine :

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The sun that cheers, the storm that lours, 30 Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away

I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey ;

Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away.

And yet it were a greater grief

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