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EARLY POEMS
523
For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,
And stifled thee, their minister. I know 10
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,
That Virtue owns a more eternal foe
Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,
And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,
And stifled thee, their minister. I know 10
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,
That Virtue owns a more eternal foe
Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,
And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.
LINES
[Published in Hunt's Literary Pocket-Book, 1823, where it is headed November, 1815. Reprinted in the Posthumous Poems, 1824. See Editor's Note.]
I
The cold earth slept below,
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around, with a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow,
The breath of night like death did flow 5
Beneath the sinking moon.
The cold earth slept below,
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around, with a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow,
The breath of night like death did flow 5
Beneath the sinking moon.
II
The wintry hedge was black,
The green grass was not seen,
The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 10
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.
The wintry hedge was black,
The green grass was not seen,
The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 10
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.
III
Thine eyes glowed in the glare
Of the moon's dying light;
As a fen-fire's beam on a sluggish stream 15
Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven[1] hair,
That shook in the wind of night.
Thine eyes glowed in the glare
Of the moon's dying light;
As a fen-fire's beam on a sluggish stream 15
Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven[1] hair,
That shook in the wind of night.
IV
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved—
The wind made thy bosom chill—
The night did shed on thy dear head 21
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved—
The wind made thy bosom chill—
The night did shed on thy dear head 21
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.
- ↑ raven 1823; tangled 1824.
