IX. I thought that it was fancy, and I listened in my bed, And then did something speak to me -I know not what was said; For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, And up the valley came again the music on the wind. X. But you were sleeping; and I said, "It's not for them: it's mine." And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. And once again it came, and close beside the window bars, Then seemed to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars. XI. So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go. And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day, But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away. XII. And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret; There's many worthier than I would make him happy yet. If I had lived-I cannot tell- I might have been his wife; But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life. XIII. O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know. And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. XIV. O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun- such ado? XV. Forever and forever, all in a blessed home And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. THE LOTOS-EATERS. I. "COURAGE!" he said, and pointed toward the land; "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." In the afternoon they came unto a land, In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, II. A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; And some through wavering lights and shadows broke, Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. They saw the gleaming river seaward flow From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, Stood sunset-flushed: and, dewed with showery drops, Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. III. The charmed sunset lingered low adown In the red West: through mountain clefts the dale A land where all things always seemed the same! The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. IV. Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, And music in his ears his beating heart did make. |