CXXV.
Tangle some notes beneath the prisoner’s bars,
Some simple music he may recognise;
He is not querulous, that it haply jars,
Nor twists its turns to meanings shrewdly-wise;
His heart shall leap aloft, and shout “ ’tis mine;”
Sorrow and hope, repentance, love, joy, tears,
Shall hail that melody’s unforgotten chime:
What matter that the crowd without the walls
Are jocund to the music of its mirth?
That the voluptuous dance, through lordly halls,
Sweeps by the eyes that sparkle to its birth?
One dreams to it, while one dances, one is sad.
Omnipotent music thou mak’st all men mad.
CXXVI.
But thou, whose breath, the music of my life,
Murmurs its sweetness, never uninhaled;
Now, the last time, glance o’er my spirit’s strife,
The bliss, whose close must be so soon bewailed.
I must depart, and think those hours were bless’d,
Long since, so pregnant of departing joy,
And wonder at the earth, I lightly press’d,
Nor knew what reverence it should once enjoy:
The crescent of thy spring shall flower as brightly
As though mine eyes stood sentinels o’er its growth;
And thou shall carol on thy pathway lightly,
Transplanting summer into winter wroth.
I’ll ponder still, where’er adversely hurled,
Thy words, which marr’d the change which makes the world.
CXXVII.
The voice that charm’d my sorrows knows me not,
The smile that made my life wakes not for me,
Haply such musings shall disown the spot,
That once looked lovely but through light of thee;
Shall anguish curse the unremembering stones,
For that they build no ruinous epitaph?
Or weave still living voices to new groans,
And match with sighs the people’s hollow laugh?
No; rather consecrate thy once abode,
The birth-place, and the altar of love’s prime;
Aye, steal my spirit from beneath its load,
Revisiting the haunts of fairy time:
The shadows of thy steps must leave the impress,
Shall drink the dew, token of bitterness.