8. "Ay, but to die, and go,” alas! Where all have gone, and all must go! To be the nothing that I was Ere born to life and living woe! 9. Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, Count o'er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever thou hast been, "Tis something better not to be. STANZAS. "Heu quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse !" 1. AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though Earth received them in her bed, There is an eye which could not brook A moment on that grave to look. 2. I will not ask where thou liest low, Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I loved and long must love Like common earth can rot; 238 POEMS. To me there needs no stone to tell, "Tis Nothing that I loved so well. 3. Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, And canst not alter now. The love where Death has set his seal, Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. 4. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine: The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, Shall never more be thine. The silence of that dreamless sleep I envy now too much to weep; Nor need I to repine That all those charms have pass'd away; I might have watch'd through long decay. 5. The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Must fall the earliest prey; Though by no hand untimely snatch'd, The leaves must drop away: And yet it were a greater grief To watch it withering, leaf by leaf, Since earthly eye but ill can bear To trace the change to foul from fair. 6. I know not if I could have borne To see thy beauties fade; The night that follow'd such a morn Thy day without a cloud hath past, As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high. 7. As once I wept, if I could weep My tears might well be shed, To think I was not near to keep To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, 8. 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. |