The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies. CXVIII. Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, For the fair footsteps of thy mortal lover; This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell Haunted by holy Love-the earliest oracle! CXIX. And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, Blend a celestial with a human heart; And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, Share with immortal transports? could thine art Make them indeed immortal, and impart The purity of heaven to earthly joys, Expel the venom and not blunt the dart 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-wearied -wrung-and riven. CXXII. Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? dare Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, The unreach'd paradise of our despair, Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 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 The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart its alchemy begun, Seem ever near the prize-wealthiest when most undone. CXXIV. We wither from our youth, we gasp awaySick-sick; unfound the boon-unslaked the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at firstBut all too late,-so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, avarice-'tis the same, Each idle-and all ill-and none the worstFor 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, Though accident, blind contact and the strong Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, Whose touch turns Hope to dust,-the dust we all have trod. CXXVI. Our life is a false nature-'tis not in 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 dew- Disease, 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, And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. CXXVIII. Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Should be the light which streams here, to illume Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. CXXX. Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter 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 And temples more divinely desolate, Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, |