Flow on, flow on in never-ceasing course,

Yet may ye never quench my inward fire! 
Within my bosom heaves a mighty force,

Where death and life contend in combat dire. 
Medicines may serve the body’s pangs to still;
Nought but the spirit fails in strength of will,—­

Fails in conception; wherefore fails it so?

A thousand times her image it portrays;
Enchanting now, and now compell’d to go,

Now indistinct, now clothed in purest rays! 
How could the smallest comfort here be flowing? 
The ebb and flood, the coming and the going!

* * * * * *

Leave me here now, my life’s companions true!

Leave me alone on rock, in moor and heath;
But courage! open lies the world to you,

The glorious heavens above, the earth beneath;
Observe, investigate, with searching eyes,
And nature will disclose her mysteries.

To me is all, I to myself am lost,

Who the immortals’ fav’rite erst was thought;
They, tempting, sent Pandoras to my cost,

So rich in wealth, with danger far more fraught;
They urged me to those lips, with rapture crown’d,
Deserted me, and hurl’d me to the ground.

1823.

III.  Atonement.

[Composed, when 74 years old, for a Polish lady, who excelled in playing on the pianoforte.]

Passion brings reason—­who can pacify

An anguish’d heart whose loss hath been so great? 
Where are the hours that fled so swiftly by?

In vain the fairest thou didst gain from fate;
Sad is the soul, confused the enterprise;

The glorious world, how on the sense it dies!

In million tones entwined for evermore,

Music with angel-pinions hovers there,
To pierce man’s being to its inmost core,

Eternal beauty has its fruit to bear;
The eye grows moist, in yearnings blest reveres
The godlike worth of music as of tears.

And so the lighten’d heart soon learns to see

That it still lives, and beats, and ought to beat,
Off’ring itself with joy and willingly,

In grateful payment for a gift so sweet. 
And then was felt,—­oh may it constant prove!—­
The twofold bliss of music and of love.

1823.
-----

The remembrance of the Good
Keep us ever glad in mood.

The remembrance of the Fair
Makes a mortal rapture share.

The remembrance of one’s Love
Blest Is, if it constant prove.

The remembrance of the One
Is the greatest joy that’s known.

1828.
-----
[Written at the age of 77.]

When I was still a youthful wight,

So full of enjoyment and merry,
The painters used to assert, in spite,

That my features were small—­yes, very;
Yet then full many a beauteous child
With true affection upon me smil’d.