XIII.

EARS of the widower, when he sees

A late-lost form that sleep reveals,

And moves his doubtful arms, and feels

Her place is empty, fall like these;

Which weep a loss for ever new,

A void where heart on heart reposed;

And, where warm hands have prest and closed, Silence, till I be silent too.

Which weep the comrade of my choice,

An awful thought, a life removed,

The human-hearted man I loved,

A Spirit, not a breathing voice.

Come Time, and teach me, many years,

I do not suffer in a dream;

For now so strange do these things seem, Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;

My fancies time to rise on wing,

And glance about the approaching sails, As tho' they brought but merchants' bales, And not the burthen that they bring.

XIV.

F one should bring me this report,

That thou hadst touch'd the land

to-day,

And I went down unto the quay,

And found thee lying in the port;

And standing, muffled round with woe,
Should see thy passengers in rank

Come stepping lightly down the plank,
And beckoning unto those they know ;

And if along with these should come

The man I held as half-divine;

Should strike a sudden hand in mine,

And ask a thousand things of home;

And I should tell him all my pa:n,

And how my life had droop'd of late,

And he should sorrow o'er my state And marvel what possess'd my brain ;

And I perceived no touch of change,
No hint of death in all his frame,
But found him all in all the same,

I should not feel it to be strange.

XV.

O-NIGHT the winds begin to rise

And roar from yonder dropping

day:

The last red leaf is whirl'd away,

The rooks are blown about the skies;

The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd,
The cattle huddled on the lea:

And wildly dash'd on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world :

And but for fancies, which aver

That all thy motions gently pass

Athwart a plane of molten glass,

I scarce could brook the strain and stir