Philomela
Hark! ah, the nightingale -
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark! -what pain!
O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain
That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain -
Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy racked heart and brain
Afford no balm?
Dost thou tonight behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and seared eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister’s shame?
Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
Poor fugitive, the feathery change
Once more, and once more seem to make resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
Listen, Eugenia -
How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!
Again -thou hearest?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!
The Voice
As the kindling glances,
Queen-like and clear,
Which the bright moon lances
From her tranquil sphere
At the sleepless waters
Of a lonely mere,
On the wild whirling waves, mournfully, mournfully,
Shiver and die.
As the tears of sorrow
Mothers have shed -
Prayers that tomorrow
Shall in vain be sped
When the flower they flow for
Lies frozen and dead -
Fall on the throbbing brow, fall on the burning breast,
Bringing no rest.
Like bright waves that fall
With a lifelike motion
On the lifeless margin of the sparkling Ocean;
A wild rose climbing up a mouldering wall -
A gush of sunbeams through a ruined hall -
Strains of glad music at a funeral -
So sad, and with so wild a start
To this deep-sobered heart,
So anxiously and painfully,
So drearily and doubtfully,
And oh, with such intolerable change
Of thought, such contrast strange,
O unforgotten voice, thy accents come,
Like wanderers from the world’s extremity,
Unto their ancient home!
In vain, all, all in vain,
They beat upon mine ear again,
Those melancholy tones so sweet and still.
Those lute-like tones which in the bygone year
Did steal into mine ear -
Blew such a thrilling summons to my will,
Yet could not shake it;
Made my tost heart its very life-blood spill,
Yet could not break it.
