MELODY TO A SCENE OF FORMER TIMES.
Art thou indeed forever gone,
Forever, ever, lost to me?
Must this poor bosom beat alone,
Or beat at all, if not for thee?
Ah! why was love to mortals given, _5
To lift them to the height of Heaven,
Or dash them to the depths of Hell?
Yet I do not reproach thee, dear!
Ah, no! the agonies that swell
This panting breast, this frenzied brain, _10
Might wake my —‘s slumb’ring tear.
Oh! Heaven is witness I did love,
And Heaven does know I love thee still,
Does know the fruitless sick’ning thrill,
When reason’s judgement vainly strove _15
To blot thee from my memory;
But which might never, never be.
Oh! I appeal to that blest day
When passion’s wildest ecstasy
Was coldness to the joys I knew, _20
When every sorrow sunk away.
Oh! I had never lived before,
But now those blisses are no more.
And now I cease to live again,
I do not blame thee, love; ah, no! _25
The breast that feels this anguished woe.
Throbs for thy happiness alone.
Two years of speechless bliss are gone,
I thank thee, dearest, for the dream.
’Tis night—what faint and distant scream _30
Comes on the wild and fitful blast?
It moans for pleasures that are past,
It moans for days that are gone by.
Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!
I see a dark and lengthened vale, _35
The black view closes with the tomb;
But darker is the lowering gloom
That shades the intervening dale.
In visioned slumber for awhile
I seem again to share thy smile, _40
I seem to hang upon thy tone.
Again you say, ‘Confide in me,
For I am thine, and thine alone,
And thine must ever, ever be.’
But oh! awak’ning still anew, _45
Athwart my enanguished senses flew
A fiercer, deadlier agony!
[End of “Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson”.]
***
STANZA FROM A TRANSLATION OF THE MARSEILLAISE HYMN.
[Published by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876; dated 1810.]
Tremble, Kings despised of man!
Ye traitors to your Country,
Tremble! Your parricidal plan
At length shall meet its destiny…
We all are soldiers fit to fight, _5
But if we sink in glory’s night
Our mother Earth will give ye new
The brilliant pathway to pursue
Which leads to Death or Victory…
***
BIGOTRY’S VICTIM.
[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1809-10. The title is Rossetti’s (1870).]