Poems. Arnold Matthew

      Yet, while I languish,

       Everywhere countless

       Prospects unroll themselves,

       And countless beings

       Pass countless moods.

      Far hence, in Asia,

       On the smooth convent-roofs,

       On the gold terraces,

       Of holy Lassa,

       Bright shines the sun.

      Gray time-worn marbles

       Hold the pure Muses;

       In their cool gallery,

       By yellow Tiber,

       They still look fair.

Strange unloved uproar[A] Shrills round their portal; Yet not on Helicon Kept they more cloudless Their noble calm.

      Through sun-proof alleys

       In a lone, sand-hemmed

       City of Africa,

       A blind, led beggar,

       Age-bowed, asks alms.

      No bolder robber

       Erst abode ambushed

       Deep in the sandy waste;

       No clearer eyesight

       Spied prey afar.

      Saharan sand-winds

       Seared his keen eyeballs;

       Spent is the spoil he won.

       For him the present

       Holds only pain.

      Two young, fair lovers,

       Where the warm June-wind,

       Fresh from the summer fields

       Plays fondly round them,

       Stand, tranced in joy.

      With sweet, joined voices,

       And with eyes brimming,

       “Ah!” they cry, “Destiny,

       Prolong the present!

       Time, stand still here!”

      The prompt stern goddess

       Shakes her head, frowning:

       Time gives his hour-glass

       Its due reversal;

       Their hour is gone.

      With weak indulgence

       Did the just goddess

       Lengthen their happiness,

       She lengthened also

       Distress elsewhere.

      The hour whose happy

       Unalloyed moments

       I would eternalize,

       Ten thousand mourners

       Well pleased see end.

      The bleak, stern hour,

       Whose severe moments

       I would annihilate,

       Is passed by others

       In warmth, light, joy.

      Time, so complained of,

       Who to no one man

       Shows partiality,

       Brings round to all men

       Some undimmed hours.

[A] Written during the siege of Rome by the French, 1849.

RESIGNATION. TO FAUSTA.

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