DREAM-TRYST
The breaths of kissing night and day Were mingled in the eastern Heaven: Throbbing with unheard melody Shook Lyra all its star-chord seven: When dusk shrunk cold, and light trod shy, And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey; And souls went palely up the sky, And mine to Lucidé.
There was no change in her sweet eyes Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine; There was no change in her deep heart Since last that deep heart knocked at mine. Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's, Wherein did ever come and go The sparkle of the fountain drops From her sweet soul below.
The chambers in the house of dreams Are fed with so divine an air, That Time's hoar wings grow young therein, And they who walk there are most fair. I joyed for me, I joyed for her, Who with the Past meet girt about: Where our last kiss still warms the air, Nor can her eyes go out.
BUONA NOTTE
Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: "Why do you talk of never enjoying moments like the past? Are you going to join your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon? Buona Notte." That letter was dated July 6th; Shelley was drowned on the 8th; and this is his imagined reply to it from another world:—
Ariel to Miranda:—hear This good-night the sea-winds bear; And let thine unacquainted ear Take grief for their interpreter.
Good-night; I have risen so high Into slumber's rarity, Not a dream can beat its feather Through the unsustaining ether. Let the sea-winds make avouch How thunder summoned me to couch, Tempest curtained me about And turned the sun with his own hand out: And though I toss upon my bed My dream is not disquieted; Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep, And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep; And I fell to sleep so suddenly That my lips are moist yet—could'st thou see— With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee. Thou can'st not wipe them; for it was Death Damped my lips that has dried my breath. A little while—it is not long— The salt shall dry on them like the song.
Now know'st thou, that voice desolate, Mourning ruined joy's estate, Reached thee through a closing gate. "Go'st thou to Plato?" Ah, girl, no! It is to Pluto that I go.