Poems By William Bell Scott. Ballads, Studies from Nature, Sonnets, etc. Illustrated by Seventeen Etchings by the Author and L. Alma Tadema |
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THE PRESENT.
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91
THE PRESENT.
No cypress-wreath nor outward signs of grief;But I may cry unto the morn, and flee
After the god whose back is turned to me,
And touch his wings and plead for some relief;
Draw, it may be, a black shaft from his sheaf:—
For now I know his quiver harbours those
Death mixed with his, as the old fable shows,
When he slept heedless on the red rose leaf.
And I may open Memory's chamber-door
To grope my way around its noiseless floor,
Now that, alas! its windows give no light,
Nor gentle voice invites me any more;
For she is but a picture faintly bright
Hung dimly high against the walls of night.
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