We are not happy, sweet; our state Is strange and full of doubt and fear; More need of words that ills abate ; Reserve or censure come not near Our sacred friendship, lest there be No solace left for thou and me, Gentle and good and mild thou art, THE ISLE. THERE was a little lawny islet Like mosaic, paven: And its roof was flowers and leaves Which the summer's breath enweaves, Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze Pierce the pines and tallest trees, Each a gem engraven. Girt by many an azure wave With which the clouds and mountains pave A lake's blue chasm. ΤΟ MUSIC, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, 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; Unfathomable Sea? LINES. THAT time is dead forever, child, We look on the past And stare aghast · At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, The stream we gazed on then, rolled by; But we yet stand In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee November 5th, 1817. |