FRAGMENT
“Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryo atoms.”
Milton
Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe’s weed, and Hermes’ feather,
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather,
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together;
Meadows sweet where flames burn under;
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomime;
Funeral and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair and storm-wreck’d hull;
Night-shade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra, regal drest,
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and Muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale,
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again,
Oh! The sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright and Muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil,
Let me see, and let me write
Of the day, and of the night,
Both together, – let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath’d with myrtles new,
Pines, and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass tomb.