FROM the bright stars, or from the viewless air,
Or from some world, unreached by human thought,
Spirit, sweet spirit! if thy home be there,
And if thy visions with the past be fraught,
Have we not communed here, of life and death?
Have we not said that love, such love as ours,
Was not to perish, as a rose's breath,
To melt away, like song from festal bowers?
Answer, oh! answer me!
Thine eye's last light was mine-the soul that shone Intensely, mournfully, through gathering haze; Didst thou bear with thee, to the shore unknown, Nought of what lived in that long, earnest gaze? Hear, hear, and answer me !
Thy voice-its low, soft, fervent, farewell tone
Thrilled through the tempest of the parting strife,
Like a faint breeze :-oh! from that music flown
Send back one sound, if love's be quenchless life!
But once,
oh! answer me.
In the still noontide, in the sunset's hush,
In the dead hour of night, when thought grows deep; When the heart's phantoms from the darkness rush, Fearfully beautiful, to strive with sleep;
By the remembrance of our blended prayer;
By all our tears, whose mingling made them sweet;
By our last hope, the victor o'er despair;
Speak!-If our souls in deathless yearnings meet,
Answer me, answer me!
The grave is silent-and the far-off sky,
And the deep midnight :-silent all, and lone!
Oh! if thy buried love make no reply,
What voice has earth? Hear, pity, speak! mine own,
Answer me, answer me!
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it has ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love.
My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone,
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone.
The fire that in my bosom preys,
Is like to some volcanic isle,
No touch is kindled at its blaze;-
A funeral pile.
The hopes, the fears, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain,
And power of love I cannot share,
But wear the chain.
But 'tis not here-it is not here
Such thoughts should shake my soul; nor nowWhere glory seals the hero's bier, Or binds his brow.
The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece around us see;
The Spartan borne upon his shield-
Was not more free.
Awake! not Greece !-she is awake!
Awake my spirit !-think through whom
My life-blood tastes its parent lake-
And then strike home!
I tread reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood-unto thee,
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.
If thou regret thy youth-why live?-
The land of honourable death
Is here-up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!
Seek out-less often sought than found-
A soldier's grave, for thee the best,
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.
CHILDE HAROLD'S LAST PILGRIMAGE.
So ends Childe Harold his last pilgrimage!
Upon the shores of Greece he stood, and cried
'Liberty!" and those shores from age to age Renown'd and Sparta's woods and rocks, replied 'Liberty!" But a spectre, at his side,
Stood mocking;-and, its dart uplifting high,
Smote him :-he sank to earth in life's fair pride:
Sparta! thy rocks then heard another cry,
And old Illissus sighed―" Die, generous exile, die."
I will not ask sad Pity to deplore
His wayward errors, who thus early died:
Still less, Childe Harold, now thou art no more,
Will I say aught of genius misapplied;
Of the past shadows of thy spleen or pride ;-
But I will bid the Arcadian cypress wave,
Pluck the green laurel from Peneus' side,
And pray thy spirit may such quiet have,
And not one thought unkind be murmur'd o'er thy
grave.
So Harold ends, in Greece, his pilgrimage!
There fitly ending,—in that land renown'd,
Whose mighty genius lives in glory's page,-
He, on the Muses' consecrated ground,
Sinking to rest, while his young brows are bound
With their unfading wreath! To bands of mirth,
No more in Tempe let the pipe resound!
Harold, I follow, to thy place of birth,
The slow hearse-and thy last sad pilgrimage on earth.
Slow moves the plumed hearse, the mourning train,
I mark the sad procession with a sigh,
Silently passing to that village fane,
Where, Harold, thy forefathers mouldering lie;—
There sleeps that mother, who, with tearful eye,
Pondering the fortunes of thy early road,
Hung o'er the slumbers of thine infancy;
Her son, released from mortal labour's load,
Now comes to rest with her in the same still abode.
Bursting death's silence-could that mother speak(Speak when the earth was heaped upon his head)— In thrilling, but with hollow accent weak,
She thus might give the welcome of the dead :-
"Here rest, my son, with me ;-the dream is fled;
The motley mask and the great stir is o'er ;
Welcome to me, and to this silent bed,
Where deep forgetfulness succeeds the roar
Of life, and fretting passions waste the heart no more.
Here rest in the oblivious grave's repose,
After the toil of earth's tumultuous way:
No interruption this deep silence knows;
Here no vain phantoms lure the heart astray :
The earth-worm feeds on its unconscious prey;
Rest here in peace-in peace till earth and sea
Give up their dead! At that last awful day,
Saviour, Almighty Judge, look down on me,
And oh my son, my son, have mercy upon thee!"
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