These fair visions have departed,
Like a poet's dream,
Leaving us pale and faint-hearted
By life's common stream,
Whence all lovelier light hath fled.
Not so: they have left behind
Memory to the kindling mind,
With bright fantasies combined.
Still the poet's dream is fed
By the beauty of Aspasia,
The bright Athenian bride.
III.
Rienzi showing Nina the Tomb of his Brother.
It was hidden in a wild wood
Of the larch and pine;
It had been unto his childhood
Solitude and shrine,—
There he dream'd the hours away.
On the boughs the wood-dove hover'd
With her mournful song;
And the ground with moss was cover'd,
Where a small brook danced along
Like a fairy child at play.
Thither did Rienzi bring
The loved and lovely one;
There was the stately Nina woo'd,
There was she won.
Reeds and water-flags were growing
By the green morass;
While the fresh wild flowers were blowing
In the pleasant grass,
Cool and sweet, and very fair.
Though the wild wind planted them
With a careless wing,
Yet kind Nature granted them
All the gifts of Spring.
Nought they needed human care.
They grew lovelier in the looks
Of that lovely one;
While the Roman maid was woo'd,
While she was won.
In the pines, a soft bewailing
Stirr'd the fringed leaves,
Like a lute whose song is failing,
Loving, while it grieves
So to die upon the wind.
Ivy garlanded the laurel,
Drooping mournfully;
Poet—warrior—read the moral
Of the victor's tree,
Lonely still amid its kind!
