There rose no day, there rolled no hour
Of pleasure unembittered;[1]
And not a trapping decked my Power
That galled not while it glittered.
III.[2]
The serpent of the field, by art
And spells, is won from harming;
But that which coils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to Wisdom's lore,
Nor Music's voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.
WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY.
I.
When coldness wraps this suffering clay,[3]
Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?
It cannot die, it cannot stay,
But leaves its darkened dust behind.
Then, unembodied, doth it trace
By steps each planet's heavenly way?[4]
- ↑ [Compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza lxxxii. lines 8, 9—
"Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings."Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 73, and note 16, p. 93.] - ↑
Ah! what hath been but what shall be,
The same dull scene renewinig?
And all our fathers were are we
In erring and undoing.—[MS.] - ↑ When this corroding clay is gone.—[MS. erased.]
- ↑ The stars in their eternal way.—[MS. L. erased.]
