 | The Ballad of Babie Bell And Other Poems |  |
59
INFELICISSIMUS.
I.
I walked with him one melancholy nightDown by the sea, upon the moon-lit strands,
While in the dreary heaven the Northern Light
Beckoned with flaming hands—
II.
Beckoned and vanished, like a woeful ghostThat fain would lure us to some dismal wood,
And tell us tales of ships that have been lost,
Of violence and blood.
III.
And where yon dædal rocks o'erhang the froth,We sat together, Lycidas and I,
Watching the great star-bear that in the North
Guarded the midnight sky.
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IV.
And while the moonlight wrought its miracles,Drenching the world with silent silver rain,
He spoke of life and its tumultuous ills:
He told me of his pain.
V.
He said his life was like the troubled seaWith autumn brooding over it: and then
Spoke of his hopes, of what he yearned to be,
And what he might have been.
VI.
‘I hope,’ said Lycidas, ‘for peace at last,I only ask for peace! My god is Ease!
Day after day some rude Iconoclast
Breaks all my images!
VII.
‘There is a better life than I have known—A surer, purer, sweeter life than this:
There is another, a celestial zone,
Where I shall know of bliss.‘
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VIII.
So, close his eyes, and cross his helpless hands,And lay the flowers he loved upon his breast;
For time and death have stayed the golden sands
That ran with such unrest!
IX.
You weep: I smile: I know that he is dead,So is his passion, and 'tis better so!
Take him, O Earth, and round his lovely head
Let countless roses blow!
| The Ballad of Babie Bell And Other Poems | |