ページの画像
PDF
ePub

And worshipp'd at innumerable shrines

Of beauty; and the painter's art, to me,
And sculpture, speak as with a living tongue,
And of dead kingdoms I recal the soul,
Sitting amid their ruins. I have stored
My memory with thoughts that can allay
Fever and sadness, and when life gets dim,
And I am overladen in my years,

Minister to me. But when wearily

The mind gives over toiling, and, with eyes
Open but seeing not, and senses all

Lying awake within their chambers dim,
Thought settles like a fountain, still and clear-
Far in its sleeping depths, as 'twere a gem,
Tell me, O memory, what shines so fair?

The face of the sweet child I knew at Rome!

ΤΟ

"The desire of the moth for the star

Of the night for the morrow

The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow."

"L'alma, quel che non ha, sogna e figura."

SHELLEY.

METASTASIO.

As, gazing on the Pleiades,

We count each fair and starry one, Yet wander from the light of these To muse upon the Pleiad goneAs, bending o'er fresh gather'd flowers, The rose's most enchanting hue

Reminds us but of other hours

Whose roses were all lovely too

So, dearest, when I rove among

The bright ones of this foreign sky,
And mark the smile, and list the song,

And watch the dancers gliding by,
The fairer still they seem to be,
The more it stirs a thought of thee!

The sad, sweet bells of twilight chime,
Of many hearts may touch but one,
And so this seeming careless rhyme
Will whisper to thy heart alone.
I give it to the winds! The bird,
Let loose, to his far nest will flee,

And love, though breathed but on a word,
Will find thee, over land and sea.

Though clouds across the sky have driven,

We trust the star at last will shine,

And like the very light of heaven

I trust thy love.

Trust thou in mine!

ΤΟ

"Oh, by that little word
How many thoughts are stirr'd !---
The last, the last, the last!"

THE star may but a meteor be,

That breaks upon the stormy night;

And I may err, believing thee

A spark of heaven's own changeless light!

But if on earth beams aught so fair,

It seems, of all the lights that shine,

Serenest in its truth, 'tis there,

Burning in those soft eyes of thine.

Yet long-watch'd stars from heaven have rush'd, And long-lov'd friends have dropp'd away, And mine-my very heart have crush'd!

And I have hop'd, this many a day,

It liv'd no more for love or pain!

But thou hast stirr'd its depths again,
And, to its dull, out-wearied ear,
Thy voice of melody has crept,

In tones it cannot choose but hear;
And now I feel it only slept,

And know, at ev'n thy lightest smile,
It gathered fire and strength the while.

Fail me not thou! This feeling past,
My heart would never rouse again.
Thou art the brightest—but the last!
And if this trust, this love is vain-
If thou, all peerless as thou art,

Be not less fair than true of heart

My loves are o'er! The sun will shine

Upon no grave so hush'd as this dark breast of mine.

« 前へ次へ »