Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/983

 EDWARD ROBERT BULWER LYTTON, EARL OF LYTTON

1831-1892

794. A Night in Italy

Sweet are the rosy memories of the lips That first kiss'd ours, albeit they kiss no more: Sweet is the sight of sunset-sailing ships, Altho' they leave us on a lonely shore: Sweet are familiar songs, tho' Music dips Her hollow shell in Thought's forlornest wells: And sweet, tho' sad, the sound of midnight bells When the oped casement with the night-rain drips.

There is a pleasure which is born of pain: The grave of all things hath its violet. Else why, thro' days which never come again, Roams Hope with that strange longing, like Regret? Why put the posy in the cold dead hand? Why plant the rose above the lonely grave? Why bring the corpse across the salt sea-wave? Why deem the dead more near in native land?

Thy name hath been a silence in my life So long, it falters upon language now, O more to me than sister or than wife, Once and now—nothing! It is hard to know That such things have been, and are not; and yet Life loiters, keeps a pulse at even measure, And goes upon its business and its pleasure, And knows not all the depths of its regret