 | Fragments and Fancies |  |
63
NOT NOW! NOT NOW!
Not now! not now! I would not sorrowing hear,
Victorious music pealing sweet and clear—
Thrilling with Passion's heart-quakes! Oh! not now!
A shadow and a pallor stain my brow;
Soft echoes! bring me to assuage my woe—
The broken music of th' Old Long ago!
Victorious music pealing sweet and clear—
Thrilling with Passion's heart-quakes! Oh! not now!
A shadow and a pallor stain my brow;
Soft echoes! bring me to assuage my woe—
The broken music of th' Old Long ago!
Not now!—alas! not now—would I behold
The festal hall, that burns with sculptured gold—
Where pictured walls glance back the flood of light—
All spiritually intense and bright!
On such gay scenes mine eyes with tears I cast,
Give me a tremulous moon-ray of the past!
The festal hall, that burns with sculptured gold—
Where pictured walls glance back the flood of light—
All spiritually intense and bright!
On such gay scenes mine eyes with tears I cast,
Give me a tremulous moon-ray of the past!
Not now!—not now!—could I delighted stray—
Where glistening waters, singing on their way,
Make the earth jubilant with wakening sound,
Where flower-scents break forth from each greensward mound;
No! lead me to indulge my deepening gloom,
To the hushed precincts of some time-worn tomb.
Where glistening waters, singing on their way,
64
Where flower-scents break forth from each greensward mound;
No! lead me to indulge my deepening gloom,
To the hushed precincts of some time-worn tomb.
Not now!—not now!—o'erworn with burdening woes,
Would I the Poet's glorious page unclose;
Whence Thoughts, like breathing Sun-strokes, flash and burn,
And Nature's founts stream free as from an urn!
No! to an altered heart—Earth's weariest thing—
Memory! thy pale and cloud-dimmed pictures bring.
Would I the Poet's glorious page unclose;
Whence Thoughts, like breathing Sun-strokes, flash and burn,
And Nature's founts stream free as from an urn!
No! to an altered heart—Earth's weariest thing—
Memory! thy pale and cloud-dimmed pictures bring.
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