Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud bath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep

One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC

[Publ. 1816]

O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
Felix in imo qui scatentem
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.
GRAY's Poemata.

50

60

70

THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:

FARE THEE WELL
[Publ. 1816]

'Alas! they had been friends in Youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth:
And constancy lives in realms above;
And Life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain;

But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

451

The marks of that which once hath been.'
COLERIDGE'S Christabel.

FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well!
Even though unforgiving, never

'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

And when thou wouldst solace gather, When our child's first accents flow, Wilt thou teach her to say 'Father!'

Though his care she must forego?

When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd,

Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,

Think of him thy love had bless'd!

Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou nevermore may 'st see, Then thy heart will softly tremble With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow, Bows to thee by thee forsaken, Even my soul forsakes me now:

But 't is done—all words are idle-
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.

40

50

60

The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,

It shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling, The last smile which answers to mine, 10 I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;