IV
     The happiest day—the happiest hour
     Mine eyes shall see—have ever seen
     The brightest glance of pride and power
     I feet have been:
     V
     But were that hope of pride and power
     Now offered with the pain
     Ev’n _then_ I felt—that brightest hour
     I would not live again:
             VI
     For on its wing was dark alloy
     And as it fluttered—fell
     An essence—powerful to destroy
     A soul that knew it well. 1827. IMITATION


     A dark unfathom’d tide
     Of interminable pride—
     A mystery, and a dream,
     Should my early life seem;
     I say that dream was fraught
     With a wild, and waking thought
     Of beings that have been,
     Which my spirit hath not seen,
     Had I let them pass me by,
     With a dreaming eye! Let none of earth inherit
     That vision on my spirit;
     Those thoughts I would control
     As a spell upon his soul:
     For that bright hope at last
     And that light time have past,
     And my worldly rest hath gone
     With a sigh as it pass’d on
     I care not tho’ it perish
     With a thought I then did cherish. 1827. HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS


      Translation from the Greek

                I
     Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal
     Like those champions devoted and brave,
     When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
     And to Athens deliverance gave. II
     Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
     In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
     Where the mighty of old have their home
     Where Achilles and Diomed rest
                III
     In fresh myrtle my blade I’ll entwine,
     Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
     When he made at the tutelar shrine
     A libation of Tyranny’s blood. IV
     Ye deliverers of Athens from shame! Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs! Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
     Embalmed in their echoing songs! 1827. DREAMS


     Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awak’ning, till the beam
     Of an Eternity should bring the morrow:
     Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
     ’Twere better than the dull reality
     Of waking life to him whose heart shall be,
     And hath been ever, on the chilly earth,
     A chaos of deep passion from his birth! But should it be—that dream eternally
     Continuing—as dreams have been to me
     In my young boyhood—should it thus be given,
     ’Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven! For I have revell’d, when the sun was bright
     In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light,
     And left unheedingly my very heart
     In climes of mine imagining—apart
     From mine own home, with beings that have been
     Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen? ’Twas once & _only_ once & the wild hour
     From my remembrance shall not pass—some power
     Or spell had bound me—’twas the chilly wind
     Came o’er me in the night & left behind
     Its image on my spirit, or the moon
     Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
     Too coldly—or the stars—howe’er it was
     That dream was as that night wind—let it pass. I have been happy—tho’ but in a dream
     I have been happy—& I love the theme—
     Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life—
     As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
     Of semblance with reality which brings
     To the delirious eye more lovely things
     Of Paradise & Love—& all our own! Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known. {From an earlier MS. Than in the book—ED.} “IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE”


     _How often we forget all time, when lone
     Admiring Nature’s universal throne;
     Her woods—her wilds—her mountains—the intense
     Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!_
                             I
     IN youth I have known one with whom the Earth
         In secret communing held—as he with it,
     In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
         Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
     From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
         A passionate light such for his spirit was fit
     And yet that spirit knew—not in the hour
         Of its own fervor—what had o’er it power. II
     Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
         To a fever* by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,
     But I will half believe that wild light fraught
         With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
     Hath ever told—or is it of a thought
         The unembodied essence, and no more
     That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass
         As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass? III
     Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye
         To the loved object—so the tear to the lid
     Will start, which lately slept in apathy? And yet it need not be—(that object) hid
     From us in life—but common—which doth lie
         Each hour before us—but then only bid
     With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken
         T’ awake us—’Tis a symbol and a token
                               IV
     Of what in other worlds shall be—and given
         In beauty by our God, to those alone
     Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
         Drawn by their heart’s passion, and that tone,
     That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
         Though not with Faith—with godliness—whose throne
     With desperate energy ‘t hath beaten down;
         Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown. * Query “fervor”?—ED. A PÆAN. I. How shall the burial rite be read? The solemn song be sung? The requiem for the loveliest dead,
         That ever died so young? II. Her friends are gazing on her,
         And on her gaudy bier,
     And weep!—oh! to dishonor
         Dead beauty with a tear! III. They loved her for her wealth—
         And they hated her for her pride—
     But she grew in feeble health,
         And they _love_ her—that she died. IV. They tell me (while they speak
         Of her “costly broider’d pall”)
     That my voice is growing weak—
         That I should not sing at all—
                        V.
     Or that my tone should be
         Tun’d to such solemn song
     So mournfully—so mournfully,
         That the dead may feel no wrong. VI. But she is gone above,
         With young Hope at her side,
     And I am drunk with love
         Of the dead, who is my bride.—
                      VII. Of the dead—dead who lies
         All perfum’d there,
     With the death upon her eyes,
         And the life upon her hair. VIII. Thus on the coffin loud and long
         I strike—the murmur sent
     Through the grey chambers to my song,
         Shall be the accompaniment. IX. Thou died’st in thy life’s June—
         But thou did’st not die too fair:
     Thou did’st not die too soon,
         Nor with too calm an air. X. From more than friends on earth,
         Thy life and love are riven,
     To join the untainted mirth
         Of more than thrones in heaven—
                      XII.