Hope, that buds in lover’s heart,
  Lives not through the scorn of years;
Time makes love itself depart;
  Time and scorn congeal the mind,—­
    Looks unkind
Freeze affection’s warmest tears.

Time shall make the bushes green;
  Time dissolve the winter snow;
Winds be soft, and skies serene;
  Linnets sing their wonted strain: 
    But again
Blighted love shall never blow!

From the Portuguese of LUIS DE CAMOENS. 
Translation of LORD STRANGFORD.

THE NEVERMORE.

Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
  I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
  Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life’s foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
  Which had Life’s form and Love’s, but by my spell
  Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.

Mark me, how still I am!  But should there dart
  One moment through my soul the soft surprise
  Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,—­
Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
  Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

THE PORTRAIT.

Midnight past!  Not a sound of aught
  Through the silent house, but the wind at his prayers. 
I sat by the dying fire, and thought
  Of the dear dead woman upstairs.

A night of tears! for the gusty rain
  Had ceased, but the eaves were dripping yet;
And the moon looked forth, as though in pain,
  With her face all white and wet: 

Nobody with me, my watch to keep,
  But the friend of my bosom, the man I love: 
And grief had sent him fast to sleep
  In the chamber up above.

Nobody else, in the country place
  All round, that knew of my loss beside,
But the good young Priest with the Raphael-face,
  Who confessed her when she died.

That good young Priest is of gentle nerve,
  And my grief had moved him beyond control;
For his lips grew white, as I could observe,
  When he speeded her parting soul.

I sat by the dreary hearth alone: 
  I thought of the pleasant days of yore: 
I said, “The staff of my life is gone: 
  The woman I loved is no more.

“On her cold dead bosom my portrait lies,
  Which next to her heart she used to wear—­
Haunting it o’er with her tender eyes
  When my own face was not there.

“It is set all round with rubies red,
  And pearls which a Peri, might have kept. 
For each ruby there my heart hath bled: 
  For each pearl my eyes have wept.”

And I said—­“The thing is precious to me: 
  They will bury her soon in the churchyard clay;
It lies on her heart, and lost must be
  If I do not take it away.”