DEATH-TRYST
(Shelley, 1822: Tennyson, 1892.)
I
One sailed an azure sea in fateful hour:
A Youth, yet age had touched him, and he seemed
Lovely and piteous, like a frosted flower.
A Book was in his hand, a page that teemed
With joy of beauty. (He who made it, slept
Where o’er his heart the Roman violets dreamed.)
Sailing, he smiled; a tryst his spirit kept;
Thoughts lucent-pinioned did as psyches flit
Across his summer dream; till on him swept
The swift black storm, and Fate and Death did sit
Betwixt its cloudy wings as down it bore;
And he who read was rapt to him who writ.
Twin stars they shine, one fame forevermore.
A fire of funeral blazed, beside the sobbing shore.
II
One slept a sacred sleep, while golden lay
Autumnal moonlight glorious on his bed,—
Sleep ebbing deathward like a sea-drawn bay.
A Book was in his hand, whence late he read
Majestic words of that great Spirit that still
Doth haunt by Avon April-garlanded.
So sleeping, held he fast with fixéd will
His Master’s Book; and all the night was peace,
Bright peace on lawn and terrace, dale and hill.
Calm consummation, and most sweet surcease!
That tryst of sovereign powers Death would not wrong,
Shattering the bars with all-too-rough release,
But softly dealt.—They rule in splendor long,
Large lights, a moon and sun in England’s heaven of song.