Part 15 (1/2)

TO THE SINKING SUN

How graciously thou wear'st the yoke Of use that does not fail!

The gra.s.ses, like an anch.o.r.ed smoke, Ride in the bending gale; This knoll is snowed with blosmy manna, And fire-dropt as a seraph's mail.

Here every eve thou stretchest out Untarnishable wing, And marvellously bring'st about Newly an olden thing; Nor ever through like-ordered heaven Moves largely thy grave progressing.

Here every eve thou goest down Behind the self-same hill, Nor ever twice alike go'st down Behind the self-same hill; Nor like-ways is one flame-sopped flower Possessed with glory past its will.

Not twice alike! I am not blind, My sight is live to see; And yet I do complain of thy Weary variety.

O Sun! I ask thee less or more, Change not at all, or utterly!

O give me unprevisioned new, Or give to change reprieve!

For new in me is olden too, That I for sameness grieve.

O flowers! O gra.s.ses! be but once The gra.s.s and flower of yester-eve!

Wonder and sadness are the lot Of change: thou yield'st mine eyes Grief of vicissitude, but not Its penetrant surprise.

Immutability mutable Burthens my spirit and the skies.

O altered joy, all joyed of yore, Plodding in unconned ways!

O grief grieved out, and yet once more A dull, new, staled amaze!

I dream, and all was dreamed before, Or dream I so? the dreamer says.

DREAM-TRYST

The breaths of kissing night and day Were mingled in the eastern Heaven: Throbbing with unheard melody Shook Lyra all its star-chord seven: When dusk shrunk cold, and light trod shy, And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey; And souls went palely up the sky, And mine to Lucide.

There was no change in her sweet eyes Since last I saw those sweet eyes s.h.i.+ne; There was no change in her deep heart Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.

Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's, Wherein did ever come and go The sparkle of the fountain drops From her sweet soul below.

The chambers in the house of dreams Are fed with so divine an air, That Time's h.o.a.r wings grow young therein, And they who walk there are most fair.

I joyed for me, I joyed for her, Who with the Past meet girt about: Where our last kiss still warms the air, Nor can her eyes go out.

BUONA NOTTE

Jane Williams, in her last letter to Sh.e.l.ley, wrote:

”Why do you talk of never enjoying moments like the past?

Are you going to join your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona Notte.” That letter was dated July 6th; Sh.e.l.ley was drowned on the 8th; and this is his imagined reply to it from another world:--

Ariel to Miranda:--hear This good-night the sea-winds bear; And let thine unacquainted ear Take grief for their interpreter.

Good-night; I have risen so high Into slumber's rarity, Not a dream can beat its feather Through the unsustaining ether.

Let the sea-winds make avouch How thunder summoned me to couch, Tempest curtained me about And turned the sun with his own hand out: And though I toss upon my bed My dream is not disquieted; Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep, And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep; And I fell to sleep so suddenly That my lips are moist yet--could'st thou see-- With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee.

Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was Death Damped my lips that has dried my breath.

A little while--it is not long-- The salt shall dry on them like the song.