Now nights grow cold and colder,
And North the wild vane swings,
And round each tree and boulder
The driving snow-storm sings--
Come, make my old heart older,
O memory of lost things!
Of Hope, when promise sung her
Brave songs and I was young,
That banquets now on hunger
Since all youth's songs are sung;
Of Love, who walks with younger
Sweethearts the flowers among.
Ah, well! while Life holds levee,
Death's ceaseless dance goes on.
So let the curtains, heavy
About my couch, be drawn--
The curtains, sad and heavy,
Where all shall sleep anon.
_Tristram And Isolt._
Night and vast caverns of rock and of iron;
Voices like water, and voices like wind;
Horror and tempests of hail that environ
Shapes and the shadows of two who have sinned.
Wan on the whirlwind, in loathing uplifting
Faces that loved once, forever they go,
TRISTAM and ISOLT, the lovers, go drifting,
The sullen laughter of Hell below.