| |
From “The Giaour”
HE who hath bent him o’er the dead | |
| Ere the first day of death is fled, | |
| The first dark day of nothingness, | |
| The last of danger and distress, | |
| (Before Decay’s effacing fingers | 5 |
| Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,) | |
| And marked the mild angelic air, | |
| The rapture of repose, that ’s there, | |
| The fixed yet tender traits that streak | |
| The languor of the placid cheek, | 10 |
| And—but for that sad shrouded eye, | |
| That fires not, wins not, weeps not now, | |
| And but for that chill, changeless brow, | |
| Where cold Obstruction’s apathy | |
| Apalls the gazing mourner’s heart, | 15 |
| As if to him it could impart | |
| The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; | |
| Yes, but for these and these alone, | |
| Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour, | |
| He still might doubt the tyrant’s power; | 20 |
| So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, | |
| The first, last look by death revealed! | |
| Such is the aspect of this shore; | |
| ’T is Greece, but living Greece no more! | |
| So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, | 25 |
| We start, for soul is wanting there. | |
| Hers is the loveliness in death, | |
| That parts not quite with parting breath; | |
| But beauty with that fearful bloom, | |
| That hue which haunts it to the tomb, | 30 |
| Expression’s last receding ray, | |
| A gilded halo hovering round decay, | |
| The farewell beam of Feeling past away; | |
| Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, | |
| Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth! | 35 |
| |
