CXVII. Fantastically tangled; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, skies. CXVIII. Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover; This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting CXIX. And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, The purity of heaven to earthly joys, The dull satiety which all destroys— And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? CXX. Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert; whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. CXXI. Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art- And to a thought such shape and image given, As haunts the unquench'd soul-parch'd-weariedwrung-and riven. CXXII. Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? CXXIII. Who loves, raves-'tis youth's frenzy-but the cure Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize-wealthiest when most undone. CXXIV. We wither from our youth, we gasp away- For all are meteors with a different name, And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. CXXV. Few-none-find what they love or could have loved, Antipathies—but to recur, ere long, Whose touch turns Hope to dust,—the dust we all have trod. CXXVI. Our life is a false nature-'tis not in The harmony of things,-this hard decree, This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be The skies which rain their plagues on men like dewDisease, death, bondage-all the woes we see And worse, the woes we see not-which throb through The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly—'tis a base (57) Our right of thought-our last and only place Is chain'd and tortured-cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. CXXVIII. Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 'twere its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, For which the palace of the present hour CXXX. Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, And only healer when the heart hath bled- My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift: CXXXI. Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne |