When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas By each was cleaving, side by side: E’en so--but why the tale reveal Of those, whom year by year unchanged, Brief absence join’d anew to feel, Astounded, soul from soul estranged?[8] They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, (_d_) They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept as I remember’d how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.[9] The feathers of the willow (_e_) Are half of them grown yellow Above the swelling stream; And ragged are the bushes, And rusty now the rushes, And wild the clouded gleam. The thistle now is older, His stalks begin to moulder, His head is white as snow; The branches are all barer, The linnet’s song is rarer. The robin pipeth low.[10] O tender dove, sweet circling in the blue, (_f_) Whom now a delicate cloud receives from view. A cool, soft, delicate cloud, we name dim Death! O pure white land-lily, inhaling breath From spiritual ether among bowers Of evergreen in the ever-living flowers Yonder aloft upon the airy height, Mine eyes may scarce arrive at thy still light![11] Hear, O ye Lemnians, hear a full brief word (_g_) Before I go, for surely from this day My voice shall be a silence on your rocks, My face a dimness with a few old men Remembered hardly. As day fathers day ’Tis meet my memory pass; ay, meet that all Change and be changed. So roll the stars along And the great world is crown’d with silent lights Watching her changes, and no thing endures.[12]