Et ses mains étaient minces, et leurs veines errantes et
Faibles jointures laissaient transparaître
La lumière vermeille du jour. Le tombeau de ta propre dépouille,
Habité nuit et jour d’un fantôme contrarié,
Est tout, enfant perdu, ce qui reste de toi !
« Sois l’héritier de plus que la terre ne peut donner,
Calme sans passion et silence irréprochable,
Là où le mort trouve, oh, non pas le sommeil ! mais le
Repos, et sont ces choses imperturbables,…
Ou vis, ou tombe dans les mers profondes de l’Amour ;
Ah, tout comme la tienne, mon épitaphe est – Paix ! »
Ce fut le seul soupir qu’elle eût fait.
HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY
[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published in Hunt’s Examiner, January 19, 1817, and with Rosalind and Helen, 1819.]
1 The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us, — visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, — Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 5
It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance ; Like hues and harmonies of evening, —
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—
Like memory of music fled, — 10
Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
11 Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form,— where art thou gone ? 15
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o er yon mountain-river, Whv aught should fail and fade that once is shown, 20
Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, — why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope ?
in No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 25
To sage or poet these responses given — Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, a among 1819 ; amongst 1817. 14 dost 1819 ; doth 1817. 21 fear and dream
1819 ; care and pain Boscumbe MS.
