From thy nest every rafter When leaves fall and cold winds come. CXCVI P. B. Shelley THE MAID OF NEIDPATH O lovers' eyes are sharp to see, Can lend an hour of cheering. All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, Across her cheek was flying; By fits so ashy pale she grew Her maidens thought her dying. Yet keenest powers to see and hear He came he pass'd-an heedless gaze The castle-arch, whose hollow tone Sir W. Scott CXCVII THE MAID OF NEIDPATH Earl March look'd on his dying child, She's at the window many an hour But ah! so pale, he knew her not, 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 T. Campbell CXCVIII Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art— The moving waters at their priestlike task Of snow upon the mountains and the moors : No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, J. Keats CXCIX THE TERROR OF DEATH When I have fears that I may cease to be Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, CC DESIDERIA Surprized by joy-impatient as the wind— Love, faithful love recall'd thee to my mind- Have I been so beguiled as to be blind То my most grievous loss?-That thought's return CCI 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! Then I sing 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. And thou art dead, as young and fair Though Earth received them in her bed, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low There flowers or weeds at will may grow It is enough for me to prove That what I loved and long must love To me there needs no stone to tell Yet did I love thee to the last, Who didst not change through all the past The love where Death has set his seal 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 sun that cheers, the storm that lours The silence of that dreamless sleep Nor need I to repine That all those charms have pass'd away The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd And yet it were a greater grief |