XVII. Thou comest, much wept for : such a breeze Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer Was as the whisper of an air To breathe thee over lonely seas. For I in spirit saw thee move Come quick, thou bringest all I love. Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, And like a beacon guards thee home. So may whatever tempest mars Slide from the bosom of the stars. So kind an office hath been done, Till all my widow’d race be run. XVIII. 'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand The violet of his native land. 'Tis little; but it looks in truth As if the quiet bones were blest And in the places of his youth. Come then, pure hands, and bcar the head And hear the ritual of the dead. Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, The life that almost dies in me; That dies not, but endures with pain, The words that are not heard again. t The Danube to the Severn gave And in the hearing of the wave. There twice a day the Severn fills: And makes a silence in the hills The Wye is hush'd nor moved along, I brim with sorrow drowning song. The tide flows down, the wave again And I can speak a little then. |