VII.
From that illumined face, pure, mild, and sweet,
A living spirit in keen lightning flies;
And by perception of my eager eyes,
I feel it stays not till their orbs repeat
Its ardour; blandly on the track they meet,
Which my charmed spirit, winged with warmth, pursues,
Undone, and clamouring for the good it views:
When absent, Memory in her holy heat
Paints its passed beauty, till my soul will glow,
Thinking it real, and divinely stirred,
On tiptoe fly to its embrace, but meeting
Nought but repulse from its angelic foe,
Whose aspect guards the gate, it dies with beating
Its heart against it, like a captive bird.
VIII.
If I live on, dear Lady, in the void
Caused by your absences, I seem to' offend
Him who adores you, and to discommend
The bliss that in your presence I enjoyed.
Soon by another thought am I annoyed—
If I of life despair, I forfeit too
The good I hope for in beholding you;
By ills so varying is my peace destroyed.
My feelings in this variance all take part
So fiercely, that I know not what decreed
Me to such grievances—I never look
On their dissensions without swift rebuke,
But night and day they war with nicest art.
And in my ruin are alone agreed.
IX.
Oh lovely gifts, by me too fatal found!
Lovely and dear indeed whilst Heaven was kind;
In mine immortal memory ye are joined,
And sworn with her to give my dying wound;
Who would have said, sweet seasons past, when crowned
With the ecstatic hope your emblems lent,
That one day you would have to represent
Despair so dark, affliction so profound?
Since in an hour ye made unpitying theft
Of those Elysian dreams, do not deny
To take as well the sorrow you have left;
Else, can I but suspect ye raised so high
My youthful joys, to wish that I should die
Midst mournful memories of the bliss bereft!