FRANCIS:
‘Soft, my dearest angel, stay,
Oh! you suck my soul away;
Suck on, suck on, I glow, I glow!
Tides of maddening passion roll, _85
And streams of rapture drown my soul.
Now give me one more billing kiss,
Let your lips now repeat the bliss,
Endless kisses steal my breath,
No life can equal such a death.’ _90
CHARLOTTE:
‘Oh! yes I will kiss thine eyes so fair,
And I will clasp thy form;
Serene is the breath of the balmy air,
But I think, love, thou feelest me warm
And I will recline on thy marble neck _95
Till I mingle into thee;
And I will kiss the rose on thy cheek,
And thou shalt give kisses to me.
For here is no morn to flout our delight,
Oh! dost thou not joy at this? _100
And here we may lie an endless night,
A long, long night of bliss.’
Spirits! when raptures move,
Say what it is to love,
When passion’s tear stands on the cheek, _105
When bursts the unconscious sigh;
And the tremulous lips dare not speak
What is told by the soul-felt eye.
But what is sweeter to revenge’s ear
Than the fell tyrant’s last expiring yell? _110
Yes! than love’s sweetest blisses ’tis more dear
To drink the floatings of a despot’s knell.
I wake—’tis done—’tis over.
NOTE: _66 ye]thou 1810.
***
DESPAIR.
And canst thou mock mine agony, thus calm
In cloudless radiance, Queen of silver night?
Can you, ye flow’rets, spread your perfumed balm
Mid pearly gems of dew that shine so bright?
And you wild winds, thus can you sleep so still _5
Whilst throbs the tempest of my breast so high?
Can the fierce night-fiends rest on yonder hill,
And, in the eternal mansions of the sky,
Can the directors of the storm in powerless silence lie?
Hark! I hear music on the zephyr’s wing, _10
Louder it floats along the unruffled sky;
Some fairy sure has touched the viewless string—
Now faint in distant air the murmurs die.
Awhile it stills the tide of agony.
Now—now it loftier swells—again stern woe _15
Arises with the awakening melody.
Again fierce torments, such as demons know,
In bitterer, feller tide, on this torn bosom flow.
Arise ye sightless spirits of the storm,
Ye unseen minstrels of the aereal song, _20
Pour the fierce tide around this lonely form,
And roll the tempest’s wildest swell along.
Dart the red lightning, wing the forked flash,
Pour from thy cloud-formed hills the thunder’s roar;
Arouse the whirlwind—and let ocean dash _25
In fiercest tumult on the rocking shore,—
Destroy this life or let earth’s fabric be no more.
Yes! every tie that links me here is dead;
Mysterious Fate, thy mandate I obey,
Since hope and peace, and joy, for aye are fled, _30
I come, terrific power, I come away.
Then o’er this ruined soul let spirits of Hell,
In triumph, laughing wildly, mock its pain;
And though with direst pangs mine heart-strings swell,
I’ll echo back their deadly yells again, _35
Cursing the power that ne’er made aught in vain.