To----[606]

1.

But once I dared to lift my eyes-- To lift my eyes to thee; And since that day, beneath the skies, No other sight they see.

2.

In vain sleep shuts them in the night-- The night grows day to me; Presenting idly to my sight What still a dream must be.

3.

A fatal dream--for many a bar Divides thy fate from mine; And still my passions wake and war, But peace be still with thine.

[First published, New Monthly Magazine, 1833, vol. 37, p. 308.]

TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

1.

You have asked for a verse:--the request In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny; But my Hippocrene was but my breast, And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

2.

Were I now as I was, I had sung What Lawrence has painted so well; But the strain would expire on my tongue, And the theme is too soft for my shell.

3.

I am ashes where once I was fire, And the bard in my bosom is dead; What I loved I now merely admire, And my heart is as grey as my head.

4.

My Life is not dated by years-- There are moments which act as a plough, And there is not a furrow appears But is deep in my soul as my brow.

5.

Let the young and the brilliant aspire To sing what I gaze on in vain; For Sorrow has torn from my lyre The string which was worthy the strain.

B.

[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 635, 636.]