You good when suffering and awake? What cure your head and side? "What would cure, that would kill me, Jane : And as I must on earth abide Awhile, yet tempt me not to break The rainbow's glory is shed. II. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute : No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, That ring the dead seaman's knell. III. When hearts have once mingled To endure what it once possest. The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home and your bier? IV. Its passions will rock thee As the storms rock the ravens on high: Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come. TO JANE-THE INVITATION. BEST and brightest, come away! The brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, Strewed flowers upon the barren way, Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. Away, away, from men and towns, Where the soul need not repress I leave this notice on my door To take what this sweet hour yields; To-day is for itself enough; Radiant sister of the Day, In the deep east, dun and blind, And the multitudinous Billows murmur at our feet, Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one In the universal sun. |