Part 65 (2/2)

Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head; but replied not. Although he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him less and less, and scarcely looked toward him. The milder and calmer Genius, the third, in proportion as I took courage to contemplate him, regarded me with more and more complacency. He held neither flower nor arrow, as the others did; but, throwing back the cl.u.s.ters of dark curls that overshadowed his countenance, he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I shrank on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love him. He smiled, not without an expression of pity, at perceiving my diffidence, my timidity: for I remembered how soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm and entrancing was Love's. By degrees, I became ashamed of my ingrat.i.tude; and turning my face away, I held out my arms, and felt my neck within his. Composure strewed and allayed all the throbbings of my bosom; the coolness of freshest morning breathed around: the heavens seemed to open above me; while the beautiful cheek of my deliverer rested on my head. I would now have looked for those others; but knowing my intention by my gesture, he said, consolatorily:

'Sleep is on his way to the Earth, where many are calling him; but it is not to these he hastens; for every call only makes him fly farther off. Sedately and gravely as he looks, he is nearly as capricious and volatile as the more arrogant and ferocious one.'

'And Love!' said I, 'whither is he departed? If not too late, I would propitiate and appease him.'

'He who cannot follow me, he who cannot overtake and pa.s.s me,' said the Genius, 'is unworthy of the name, the most glorious in earth or heaven. Look up! Love is yonder, and ready to receive thee.'

I looked: the earth was under me: I saw only the clear blue sky, and something brighter above it.

POEMS

I

She I love (alas in vain!) Floats before my slumbering eyes: When she comes she lulls my pain, When she goes what pangs arise!

Thou whom love, whom memory flies, Gentle Sleep! prolong thy reign!

If even thus she soothe my sighs, Never let me wake again!

II

Pleasure! why thus desert the heart In its spring-tide?

I could have seen her, I could part, And but have sigh'd!

O'er every youthful charm to stray, To gaze, to touch....

Pleasure! why take so much away, Or give so much?

III

Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives, Alcestis rises from the shades; Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives Immortal youth to mortal maids.

Soon shall Oblivion's deepening veil Hide all the peopled hills you see, The gay, the proud, while lovers hail These many summers you and me.

IV

Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!

A path forbidden _me_!

Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds Upon the mountain-heads, How often we have watcht him laying down His brow, and dropt our own Against each other's, and how faint and short And sliding the support!

What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest, Ianthe! nor will rest But on the very thought that swells with pain.

O bid me hope again!

O give me back what Earth, what (without you) Not Heaven itself can do, One of the golden days that we have past; And let it be my last!

Or else the gift would be, however sweet, Fragile and incomplete.

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