Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, Bound to thy service with unceasing care-- The mind's least generous wish a mendicant For nought but what thy happiness could spare. Speak!--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird's-nest fill'd with snow 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine-- Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know! _W. Wordsworth_ CCXXXIV When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted, To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this! The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow; It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame: I hear thy name spoken And share in its shame. They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me-- Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee Who knew thee too well: Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. In secret we met: In silence I grieve That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee?-- With silence and tears. _Lord Byron_ CCXXXV _HAPPY INSENSIBILITY_ In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them, Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime. In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time. Ah! would 'twere so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Writhed not at passéd joy? To know the change and feel it, When there is none to heal it Nor numbéd sense to steal it-- Was never said in rhyme. _J. Keats_ CCXXXVI Where shall the lover rest Whom the fates sever From his true maiden's breast Parted for ever? Where, through groves deep and high Sounds the far billow, Where early violets die Under the willow. _Eleu loro Soft shall be his pillow._ There through the summer day Cool streams are laving: There, while the tempests sway, Scarce are boughs waving; There thy rest shalt thou take, Parted for ever, Never again to wake Never, O never! _Eleu loro Never, O never!_