Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 5.djvu/652

612 Their clock the Sun, in his unbounded tower;

They reckoned not, whose day was but an hour;

The nightingale, their only vesper-bell,

Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell;

The broad Sun set, but not with lingering sweep,

As in the North he mellows o'er the deep;

But fiery, full, and fierce, as if he left

The World for ever, earth of light bereft,

Plunged with red forehead down along the wave,

As dives a hero headlong to his grave.

Then rose they, looking first along the skies,

And then for light into each other's eyes,

Wondering that Summer showed so brief a sun,

And asking if indeed the day were done.

XVI.

And let not this seem strange: the devotee

Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy;

Around him days and worlds are heedless driven,

His Soul is gone before his dust to Heaven.

Is Love less potent? No—his path is trod,

Alike uplifted gloriously to God;

Or linked to all we know of Heaven below,

The other better self, whose joy or woe

Is more than ours; the all-absorbing flame

Which, kindled by another, grows the same,

Wrapt in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile,

Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile.

How often we forget all time, when lone,

Admiring Nature's universal throne,

Her woods—her wilds—her waters—the intense

Reply of hers to our intelligence!

Live not the Stars and Mountains? Are the Waves

Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves

Without a feeling in their silent tears?