Page:Rosalind and Helen (Shelley, Forman).djvu/20

18 And the power it's glimpses bring Had, with one awful shadow, quelled The passion of their grief. They sate With linked hands, for unrepelled Had Helen taken Rosalind's. Like the autumn wind, when it unbinds The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair, Which is twined in the sultry summer air Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre, Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet, And the sound of her heart that ever heat, As with sighs and words she breathed on her, Unbind the knots of her friend's despair, Till her thoughts were free to float and flow And from her labouring bosom now, Like the bursting of a prisoned flame, The voice of a long pent sorrow came.

I saw the dark earth fall upon The coffin; and I saw the stone Laid over him whom this cold breast Had pillowed to his nightly rest! Thou knowest not, thou canst not know My agony. Oh! I could not weep: The sources whence such blessings flow Were not to be approached by me! But I could smile, and I could sleep, Though with a self-accusing heart. In morning's light, in evening's gloom, I watched,—and would not thence depart—