CXCV

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE

7HEN the lamp is shatter'd

WH

The light in the dust lies dead

When the cloud is scatter'd,

The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,

Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour

Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute-
No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruin'd cell,
Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;

The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possesst.

O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee

As the storms rock the ravens on high;

Bright reason will mock thee

Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

P. B. Shelley

CXCVI

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

LOVERS' eyes are 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
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
To watch her Love's returning.

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decay'd by pining,
Till through her wasted hand, at night,
You saw the taper shining.

By fits a sultry hectic hue

Across her cheek was flying;

By fits so ashy pale she grew

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 —
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

CXCVII

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

E

ARL 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;

Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes

To lift their silken lashes.

T. Campbell

B

CXCVIII

RIGHT 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.

7. Keats

CXCIX

THE TERROR OF DEATH

HEN I have fears that I may cease to be

W Before my pen

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-piléd books, in charact❜ry
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.

7. Keats

S

CC

DESIDERIA

URPRISED 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?

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
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