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  Murmur to me but in the poet’s song.

  I did believe (what have I not believed?)

  Weary with age, but unopprest by pain.

  To close in thy soft clime my quiet day,

  And rest my bones in the Mimosa’s shade.

  Hope! Hope! few ever cherisht thee so little;

  Few are the heads thou hast so rarely raised;

  But thou didst promise this, and all was well.

  For we are fond of thinking where to lie

  When every pulse hath ceast, when the lone heart

  Can lift no aspiration … reasoning

  As if the sight were unimpaired by death,

  Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid,

  And the sun cheered corruption!

  Over all

  The smiles of Nature shed a potent charm,

  And light us to our chamber at the grave.

  POEMS PUBLISHED IN

  1846–7

  28

  FROM MOSCHUS

  Ah! when the mallow in the croft dies down,

  Or the pale parsley or the crispèd anise,

  Again they grow, another year they flourish;

  But we, the great, the valiant, and the wise,

  Once covered over in the hollow earth,

  Sleep a long, dreamless, unawakening sleep.

  29

  LEONTION ON TERNISSA’S DEATH

  Ternissa! you are fled!

  I say not to the dead,

  But to the happy ones who rest below:

  For surely, surely, where

  Your voice and graces are,

  Nothing of death can any feel or know.

  Girls who delight to dwell

  Where grows most asphodel,

  Gather to their calm breasts each word you speak:

  The mild Persephone

  Places you on her knee,

  And your cool palm smoothes down stern Pluto’s cheek.

  30

  TO MISS ROSE PAYNTER ON SEEING HER SIT FOR HER PORTRAIT

  The basket upon which thy fingers bend,

  Thou mayst remember in my Tuscan hall,

  When the glad children, gazing on a friend,

  From heedless arm let high-piled peaches fall

  On the white marble, splashing to the wall.

  Oh, were they present at this later hour!

  Could they behold the form whole realms admire

  Lean with such grace o’er cane and leaf and flower,

  Happy once more could they salute their sire,

  Nor wonder that her name still rests upon his lyre!

  31

  THE FÆSULAN VILLA

  Where three huge dogs are ramping yonder

  Before that villa with its tower,

  No braver boys, no father fonder,

  Ever prolonged the moonlight hour.

  Often, to watch their sports unseen,

  Along the broad stone bench he lies,

  The oleander-stems between

  And citron-boughs to shade his eyes.

  The clouds now whiten far away,

  And villas glimmer thick below,

  And windows catch the quivering ray,

  Obscure one minute’s space ago.

  Orchards and vine-knolls maple-propt,

  Rise radiant round: the meads are dim,

  As if the milky-way had dropt

  And fill’d Valdarno to the brim.

  Unseen beneath us, on the right,

  The abbey with unfinisht front

  Of checker’d marble, black and white

  And on the left the Doccia’s font.

  Eastward, two ruin’d castles rise

  Beyond Maiano’s mossy mill,

  Winter and Time their enemies,

  Without their warder, stately still.

  The heaps around them there will grow

  Higher, as years sweep by, and higher.

  Till every battlement laid low

  Is seized and trampled by the briar.

  That line so lucid is the weir

  Of Rovezzano: but behold

  The graceful tower of Giotto there,

  And Duomo’s cross of freshen’d gold.

  We can not tell, so far away,

  Whether the city’s tongue be mute,

  We only hear some lover play

  (If sighs be play) the sighing flute.

  32

  Remain, ah not in youth alone,

  Tho’ youth, where you are, long will stay,

  But when my summer days are gone,

  And my autumnal haste away.

  ‘Can I be always at your side?’

  No; but the hours you can, you must,

  Nor rise at Death’s approaching stride,

  Nor go when dust is gone to dust.

  33

  Dull is my verse: not even thou

  Who movest many cares away

  From this lone breast and weary brow

  Canst make, as once, its fountain play;

  No, nor those gentle words that now

  Support my heart to hear thee say:

  ‘The bird upon its lonely bough

  Sings sweetest at the close of day.’

  34

  Thou hast not rais’d, Ianthe, such desire

  In any breast as thou hast rais’d in mine.

  No wandering meteor now, no marshy fire,

  Leads on my steps, but lofty, but divine:

  And, if thou chillest me, as chill thou dost

  When I approach too near, too boldly gaze,

  So chills the blushing morn, so chills the host

  Of vernal stars, with light more chaste than day’s.

  35

  WHAT NEWS

  Here, ever since you went abroad,

  If there be change, no change I see,

  I only walk our wonted road,

  The road is only walkt by me.

  Yes; I forgot: a change there is;

  Was it of that you bade me tell?

  I catch at times, at times I miss

  The sight, the tone, I know so well.

  Only two months since you stood here!

  Two shortest months! then tell me why

  Voices are harsher than they were,

  And tears are longer ere they dry.

  36

  Tell me not things past all belief;

  One truth in you I prove;

  The flame of anger, bright and brief,

  Sharpens the barb of love.

  37

  He who in waning age would moralize

  With leaden finger weighs down joyous eyes;

  Youths too, with all they say, can only tell

  What maids know well:

  And yet if they are kind, they hear it out

  As patiently as if they clear’d a doubt.

  I will not talk like either. Come with me;

  Look at the tree!

  Look at the tree while still some leaves are green;

  Soon must they fall. Ah! in the space between

  Lift those long eyelashes above your book,

  For the last look!

  38

  MILTON

  Will mortals never know each other’s station

  Without the herald? O abomination!

  Milton, even Milton, rankt with living men!

  Over the highest Alps of mind he marches,

  And far below him spring the baseless arches

  Of Iris, coloring dimly lake and fen.

  39

  TO ROBERT BROWNING

  There is delight in singing, though none hear

  Beside the singer; and there is delight

  In praising, though the praiser sit alone

  And see the prais’d far off him, far above.

  Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world’s,

  Therefore on him no speech; and brief for thee,

  Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,

  No man hath walkt along our roads with step

  So active, so inquiri
ng eye, or tongue

  So varied in discourse. But warmer climes

  Give brighter plumage, stronger wing; the breeze

  Of Alpine highths thou playest with, borne on

  Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where

  The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

  40

  Boastfully call we all the world our own:

  What are we who should call it so? The form

  Erect, the eye that pierces stars and suns,

  Droop and decay, no beast so piteously.

  More mutable than wind-worn leaves are we;

  Yea, lower are we than the dust’s estate;

  The very dust is as it was before;

  Dissever’d from ourselves, aliens and outcasts

  From what our pride dared call inheritance,

  We only live to feel our fall and die.

  41

  Twenty years hence my eyes may grow

  If not quite dim, yet rather so,

  Still yours from others they shall know

  Twenty years hence.

  Twenty years hence tho’ it may hap

  That I be call’d to take a nap

  In a cool cell where thunder-clap

  Was never heard,

  There breathe but o’er my arch of grass

  A not too sadly sigh’d Alas,

  And I shall catch, ere you can pass,

  That winged word.

  42

  In spring and summer winds may blow,

  And rains fall after, hard and fast;

  The tender leaves, if beaten low,

  Shine but the more for shower and blast.

  But when their fated hour arrives,

  When reapers long have left the field,

  When maidens rifle turn’d-up hives,

  And their last juice fresh apples yield,

  A leaf perhaps may still remain

  Upon some solitary tree,

  Spite of the wind and of the rain …

  A thing you heed not if you see …

  At last it falls. Who cares? not one:

  And yet no power on earth can ever

  Replace the fallen leaf upon

  Its spray, so easy to dissever.

  If such be love I dare not say,

  Friendship is such, too well I know,

  I have enjoy’d my summer day;

  ’Tis past; my leaf now lies below.

  43

  Retire, and timely, from the world, if ever

  Thou hopest tranquil days;

  Its gaudy jewels from thy bosom sever,

  Despise its pomp and praise.

  The purest star that looks into the stream

  Its slightest ripple shakes,

  And Peace, where’er its fiercer splendours gleam,

  Her brooding nest forsakes.

  The quiet planets roll with even motion

  In the still skies alone;

  O’er ocean they dance joyously, but ocean

  They find no rest upon.

  44

  Night airs that make tree-shadows walk, and sheep

  Washed white in the cold moonshine on grey cliffs.

  45

  The brightest mind, when sorrow sweeps across,

  Becomes the gloomiest; so the stream, that ran

  Clear as the light of heaven ere autumn closed,

  When wintry storm and snow and sleet descend,

  Is darker than the mountain or the moor.

  46

  Ten thousand flakes about my windows blow,

  Some falling and some rising, but all snow.

  Scribblers and statesmen! are ye not just so?

  47

  Various the roads of life; in one

  All terminate, one lonely way.

  We go, and ‘Is he gone?’

  Is all our best friends say.

  48

  PLAYS

  How soon, alas, the hours are over,

  Counted us out to play the lover!

  And how much narrower is the stage,

  Allotted us to play the sage!

  But when we play the fool, how wide

  The theatre expands; beside,

  How long the audience sits before us!

  How many prompters! what a chorus!

  49

  Sweet was the song that Youth sang once,

  And passing sweet was the response;

  But there are accents sweeter far

  When Love leaps down our evening star,

  Holds back the blighting wings of Time,

  Melts with his breath the crusty rime,

  And looks into our eyes, and says,

  ‘Come, let us talk of former days.’

  50

  Fate! I have askt few things of thee,

  And fewer have to ask.

  Shortly, thou knowest, I shall be

  No more … then con thy task.

  If one be left on earth so late

  Whose love is like the past,

  Tell her, in whispers, gentle Fate,

  Not even love must last.

  Tell her, I leave the noisy feast

  Of life, a little tired;

  Amid its pleasures few possest

  And many undesired.

  Tell her, with steady pace to come

  And, where my laurels lie,

  To throw the freshest on the tomb

  When it has caught her sigh.

  Tell her, to stand some steps apart

  From others, on that day,

  And check the tear (if tear should start)

  Too precious for dull clay.

  51

  Why, why repine, my pensive friend,

  At pleasures slipt away?

  Some the stern Fates will never lend,

  And all refuse to stay.

  I see the rainbow in the sky,

  The dew upon the grass,

  I see them, and I ask not why

  They glimmer or they pass.

  With folded arms I linger not

  To call them back; ’twere vain;

  In this, or in some other spot

  I know they’ll shine again.

  52

  My guest! I have not led you thro’

  The old footpath of swamp and sedges;

  But … mind your step … you’re coming to

  Shingle and shells with sharpish edges.

  Here a squash jelly-fish, and there

  An old shark’s head with open jaw

  We hap may hit on: never fear

  Scent rather rank and crooked saw.

  Step forward: we shall pass them soon,

  And then before you will arise

  A fertile scene: a placid moon

  Above, and star-besprinkled skies.

  And we shall reach at last (where ends

  The field of thistles, sharp and light)

  A dozen brave and honest friends,

  And there wish one and all good-night.

  53

  O friends! who have accompanied thus far

  My quickening steps, sometimes where sorrow sate

  Dejected, and sometimes where valour stood

  Resplendent, right before us; here perhaps

  We best might part; but one to valour dear

  Comes up in wrath and calls me worse than foe,

  Reminding me of gifts too ill deserved.

  I must not blow away the flowers he gave,

  Altho’ now faded; I must not efface

  The letters his own hand has traced for me.

  Here terminates my park of poetry.

  Look out no longer for extensive woods,

  For clusters of unlopt and lofty trees,

  With stately animals coucht under them,

  Or grottoes with deep wells of water pure,

  And ancient figures in the solid rock:

  Come, with our sunny pasture be content,

  Our narrow garden and our homestead croft,

  And tillage not neglected. Love breathes round;

&n
bsp; Love, the bright atmosphere, the vital air

  Of youth; without it life and death are one.

  54

  The leaves are falling; so am I;

  The few late flowers have moisture in the eye;

  So have I too.

  Scarcely on any bough is heard

  Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird

  The whole wood through.

  Winter may come: he brings but nigher

  His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire

  Where old friends meet:

  Let him; now heaven is overcast,

  And spring and summer both are past,

  And all things sweet.

  55

  From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass

  Like little ripples down a sunny river;

  Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass,

  Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever.

  56

  Idle and light are many things you see

  In these my closing pages: blame not me.

  However rich and plenteous the repast,

  Nuts, almonds, biscuits, wafers, come at last.

  57

  Is it not better at an early hour

  In its calm cell to rest the weary head,

  While birds are singing and while blooms the bower,