With sweet, joined voices,
And with eyes brimming,
“Ah!” they cry, “Destiny,
Prolong the present!
Time, stand still here!”
The prompt stern goddess
Shakes her head, frowning:
Time gives his hour-glass
Its due reversal;
Their hour is gone.
With weak indulgence
Did the just goddess
Lengthen their happiness,
She lengthened also
Distress elsewhere.
The hour whose happy
Unalloyed moments
I would eternalize,
Ten thousand mourners
Well pleased see end.
The bleak, stern hour,
Whose severe moments
I would annihilate,
Is passed by others
In warmth, light, joy.
Time, so complained of,
Who to no one man
Shows partiality,
Brings round to all men
Some undimmed hours.
[A] Written during the siege of Rome by the French, 1849.
RESIGNATION.
TO FAUSTA.
To die be given us, or attain!
Fierce work it were, to do again.