What fault so great, what guiltiness so dire Did blight me ere my birth, that adverse grew To me the brow of fortune and the sky? How did I sin, a child, when ignorant Of wickedness is life, that from that time Despoiled of youth and of its fairest flowers, The cruel Fates wove with relentless wrath The web of my existence? Reckless words Rise on thy lips; the events that are to be, A secret council guides. Secret is all, Our agony excepted. We were born, Neglected race, for tears; the reason lies Amid the Gods on high. Oh cares and hopes Of early years! To beauty did the Sire, To glorious beauty an eternal reign Give o'er this human kind; for warlike deed, For learned lyre or song, In unadornèd shape, no charms to fame belong. Ah! let us die. The unworthy garb divested, The naked soul will take to Dis its flight And expiate the cruel fault of blind Dispensers of our lot. And thou for whom Long love in vain, long faith and fruitless rage Of unappeased desire assailed my heart, Live happily, if happily on earth A mortal yet hath lived. Not me did Jove Sprinkle with the delightful liquor from The niggard urn, since of my childhood died The dreams and fond delusions. The glad days Of our existence are the first to fly; And then disease and age approach, and last, The shade of frigid Death. Behold! of all The palms I hoped for and the errors sweet, Hades remains; and the transcendant mind Sinks to the Stygian shore Where sable Night doth reign, and silence evermore. THE INFINITE. I always loved this solitary hill And this green hedge that hides on every side The last and dim horizon from our view. But as I sit and gaze, a never-ending Space far beyond it and unearthly silence And deepest quiet in my thought I picture, And as with terror is my heart o'ercast With wondrous awe. And whilst I hear the wind Amid the green leaves rustling, I compare That silence infinite unto this sound, And to my mind eternity occurs And all the vanished ages, and the present Whose sound doth meet mine ear. And so in this Immensity my thought is drifted on, And to be wrecked on such a sea is sweet. To SYLVIA. Sylvia, rememberest thou Yet that sweet time of thine abode on earth, When beauty graced thy brow And fired thine eyes so radiant and so gay, And thou, so joyous, yet of pensive mood, Didst pass on youth's fair way? The chambers calm and still, The sunny paths around, Did to thy song resound, When thou, upon thy handiwork intent, Wast seated, full of joy At the fair future where thy hopes were bound. It was the fragrant month of flowery May, And thus went by thy day.