ARIEL
Wert thou on earth to-day, immortal one,
How wouldst thou, in the starlight of thine eld,
The likeness of that morntide look upon
Which men beheld?
How might it move thee, imaged in time's glass,
As when the tomb has kept
Unchanged the face of one who slept
Too soon, yet moulders not, though seasons come and pass?
Has Death a wont to stay the soul no less?
And art thou still what Shelley was erewhile,—
A feeling born of music's restlessness—
A child's swift smile
Between its sobs—a wandering mist that rose
At dawn—a cloud that hung
The Euganéan hills among;
Thy voice, a wind-harp's strain in some enchanted close?
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