No More Learning

I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold-too cold for me--
There passed, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,

Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night. ,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

1827.




"THE HAPPIEST DAY. "

I

THE happiest day-the happiest hour
My seared and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.

Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween
But they have vanished long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been
But let them pass.

III

And pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may ev'n inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me
Be still my spirit!

IV

The happiest day-the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see-have ever seen
The brightest glance of pride and power
I feet have been:

V

But were that hope of pride and power
Now offered with the pain
Ev'n _then I _felt-that brightest hour
I would not live again:

VI

For on its wing was dark alloy
And as it fluttered-fell
An essence-powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.

1827.




IMITATION

A dark unfathom'd tide
Of interminable pride--
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild, and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it pass'd on
I care not tho' it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
1827.






HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS

Translation from the Greek

I

WREATHED in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal
Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.

II

Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home
Where Achilles and Diomed rest

III

In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny's blood.

IV

Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs!

1827.




DREAMS

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awak'ning, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow:
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the dull reality
Of waking life to him whose heart shall be,
And hath been ever, on the chilly earth,
A chaos of deep passion from his birth!

But should it be--that dream eternally
Continuing--as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood--should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven!
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light,
And left unheedingly my very heart
In climes of mine imagining--apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought--what more could I have seen?

'Twas once & _only_ once & the wild hour
From my rememberance shall not pass--some power
Or spell had bound me--'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night & left behind
Its image on my spirit, or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly--or the stars--howe'er it was
That dream was as that night wind--let it pass.