 | Collected poems of Thomas Hardy |  |
166
IMITATIONS, ETC.
SAPPHIC FRAGMENT
“Thou shalt be—Nothing.”
—Omar Khayyam.
“Tombless, with no remembrance.”
W. Shakespeare.
Dead shalt thou lie; and nought
Be told of thee or thought,
For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree:
And even in Hades' halls
Amidst thy fellow-thralls
No friendly shade thy shade shall company!
CATULLUS: XXXI
(After passing Sirmione, April 1887)
Sirmio, thou dearest dear of strands
That Neptune strokes in lake and sea,
With what high joy from stranger lands
Doth thy old friend set foot on thee!
Yea, barely seems it true to me
That no Bithynia holds me now,
But calmly and assuringly
Around me stretchest homely Thou.
That Neptune strokes in lake and sea,
With what high joy from stranger lands
Doth thy old friend set foot on thee!
Yea, barely seems it true to me
That no Bithynia holds me now,
But calmly and assuringly
Around me stretchest homely Thou.
Is there a scene more sweet than when
Our clinging cares are undercast,
And, worn by alien moils and men,
The long untrodden sill repassed,
We press the pined for couch at last,
And find a full repayment there?
Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast,
And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!
Our clinging cares are undercast,
And, worn by alien moils and men,
The long untrodden sill repassed,
We press the pined for couch at last,
And find a full repayment there?
Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast,
And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!
167
AFTER SCHILLER
Knight, a true sister-love
This heart retains;
Ask me no other love,
That way lie pains!
This heart retains;
Ask me no other love,
That way lie pains!
Calm must I view thee come,
Calm see thee go;
Tale-telling tears of thine
I must not know!
Calm see thee go;
Tale-telling tears of thine
I must not know!
SONG FROM HEINE
I scanned her picture, dreaming,
Till each dear line and hue
Was imaged, to my seeming,
As if it lived anew.
Till each dear line and hue
Was imaged, to my seeming,
As if it lived anew.
Her lips began to borrow
Their former wondrous smile;
Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow,
Grew sparkling as erstwhile.
Their former wondrous smile;
Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow,
Grew sparkling as erstwhile.
Such tears as often ran not
Ran then, my love, for thee;
And O, believe I cannot
That thou art lost to me!
Ran then, my love, for thee;
And O, believe I cannot
That thou art lost to me!
FROM VICTOR HUGO
Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,
My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,
For a glance from you!
My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,
For a glance from you!
168
Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs,
Angels, the demons abject under me,
Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,
Time, space, all would I give—aye, upper spheres,
For a kiss from thee!
Angels, the demons abject under me,
Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,
Time, space, all would I give—aye, upper spheres,
For a kiss from thee!
CARDINAL BEMBO'S EPITAPH ON RAPHAEL
Here's one in whom Nature feared—faint at such vying—Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying.
| Collected poems of Thomas Hardy | |