III. When I arose and saw the dawn, I sighed for thee; When light rode high, and the dew was gone, IV. Thy brother Death came, and cried, Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noon-tide bee, Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me?— And I replied, V. Death will come when thou art dead, Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon TO EMILIA VIVIANI. MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me Embleming love and health, which never yet Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? For never rain or dew Such fragrance drew From plant or flower the very doubt endears My sadness ever new, The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee. TIME. UNFATHOMABLE Sea! whose waves are years, Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality! And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea? CHORUS FROM HELLAS. WE strew these opiate flowers On thy restless pillow, They were stripped from Orient bowers, By the Indian billow. Be thy sleep Calm and deep, Like their's who fell- not our's who weep! Away, unlovely dreams! Away, false shapes of sleep! Be his, as Heaven seems, Clear, and bright, and deep! Soft as love, and calm as death, Sweet as a summer night without a breath. Sleep, sleep! our song is laden It was sung by a Samian maiden, Whose lover was of the number Who now keep That calm sleep Whence none may wake, where none shall weep. I touch thy temples pale! I breathe my soul on thee! And could my prayers avail. All my joy should be Dead, and I would live to weep, So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep. LINES. I. FAR, far away, O ye II. Vultures, who build your bowers Withered hopes on hopes are spread, Dying joys choked by the dead, Will serve your beaks for prey |