No longer I see with pleasure
The spring of the balance-wheel
Flit hither and there at measure,
Like a butterfly form of steel.
When Hippogriff bears me, yearning,
Through skies of another sphere,
My soul-reft body goes turning
Wherever the steed may veer.
Eternity still is giving
Its gaze to the lifeless face.
Time seeketh the heart once living,
His ear at the old watch-case,—
That heart whose regular motion
Was followed within my breast
By wave-beats of life's full ocean!
Ah well! the watch is at rest.
But its brother is beating ever,
Steadfast and sturdy kept
By One Who forgetteth never,—
Who wound it the while I slept.
THE MERMAIDS
There's a sketch you may discover
By an artist of degree
Rime and metre quarrel over—
Théophile Kniatowski.
On the snowy foam that fringes
All the mantle of the brine,
Radiant with the sunlight's tinges,
Three mermaidens softly shine.
Like the drownèd lilies dancing
Turn they, as the spiral wave
Buoys their bodies hiding, glancing,
As they sink and rise and lave.