FullReads

‘Twas said that he had refuge sought
In love from his unquiet thought
In distant lands, and been deceived
By some strange show; for there were found,
Blotted with tears as those relieved 760
By their own words are wont to do,
These mournful verses on the ground,
By all who read them blotted too.

‘How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire:
I loved, and I believed that life was love. 765
How am I lost! on wings of swift desire
Among Heaven’s winds my spirit once did move.
I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire
My liquid sleep: I woke, and did approve
All nature to my heart, and thought to make 770
A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.

‘I love, but I believe in love no more.
I feel desire, but hope not. O, from sleep
Most vainly must my weary brain implore
Its long lost flattery now: I wake to weep, 775
And sit through the long day gnawing the core
Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep,
Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure,
To my own soul its self-consuming treasure.’

He dwelt beside me near the sea; 780
And oft in evening did we meet,
When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee
O’er the yellow sands with silver feet,
And talked: our talk was sad and sweet,
Till slowly from his mien there passed 785
The desolation which it spoke;
And smiles,–as when the lightning’s blast
Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,
The next spring shows leaves pale and rare,
But like flowers delicate and fair, 790
On its rent boughs,–again arrayed
His countenance in tender light:
His words grew subtile fire, which made
The air his hearers breathed delight:
His motions, like the winds, were free, 795
Which bend the bright grass gracefully,
Then fade away in circlets faint:
And winged Hope, on which upborne
His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,
Like some bright spirit newly born 800
Floating amid the sunny skies,
Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.
Yet o’er his talk, and looks, and mien,
Tempering their loveliness too keen,
Past woe its shadow backward threw, 805
Till like an exhalation, spread
From flowers half drunk with evening dew,
They did become infectious: sweet
And subtle mists of sense and thought:
Which wrapped us soon, when we might meet, 810
Almost from our own looks and aught
The wild world holds. And so, his mind
Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear:
For ever now his health declined,
Like some frail bark which cannot bear 815
The impulse of an altered wind,
Though prosperous: and my heart grew full
‘Mid its new joy of a new care:
For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,
As rose-o’ershadowed lilies are; 820
And soon his deep and sunny hair,
In this alone less beautiful,
Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.
The blood in his translucent veins
Beat, not like animal life, but love 825
Seemed now its sullen springs to move,
When life had failed, and all its pains:
And sudden sleep would seize him oft
Like death, so calm, but that a tear,
His pointed eyelashes between, 830
Would gather in the light serene
Of smiles, whose lustre bright and soft
Beneath lay undulating there.
His breath was like inconstant flame,
As eagerly it went and came; 835
And I hung o’er him in his sleep,
Till, like an image in the lake
Which rains disturb, my tears would break
The shadow of that slumber deep:
Then he would bid me not to weep, 840
And say, with flattery false, yet sweet,
That death and he could never meet,
If I would never part with him.
And so we loved, and did unite
All that in us was yet divided: 845
For when he said, that many a rite,
By men to bind but once provided,
Could not be shared by him and me,
Or they would kill him in their glee,
I shuddered, and then laughing said– 850
‘We will have rites our faith to bind,
But our church shall be the starry night,
Our altar the grassy earth outspread,
And our priest the muttering wind.’