ODE TO A DEAD BODY. RISE from the loathsome and devouring tomb! Is over; and deaf, blind, and dumb, Thou servest worms for food, And from thine altitude Fierce Death hath shaken thee down, and thou dost fit Thy bed within a pit! Night, endless Night, hath got thee, To clutch, and to englut thee; And rottenness confounds Thy limbs and their sleek rounds; And thou art stuck there stuck there, in despite : Like a foul animal in a trap at night! Come in the public path! and see how all Shall fly thee as a child goes shrieking back From something long and black Which mocks along the wall. To hear what thou wouldst say; See if thine arms can win One soul to think of sin; See if the tribe of wooers Will now become pursuers; ODE TO A DEAD BODY. And if, where they make way, Thou'lt carry now the day. Or whether thou wilt spread not such foul night, Yes, till thou turn into the loathly hole, Turn round upon thy soul, And cry: O wretch in a shroud, ODE TO A DEAD BODY. That wast so headstrong proud! This, this is the reward For hearts that are so hard, Where all things come to wither ; And where no resting is, and no repentance, Where is that alabaster bosom now, 'Tis clay unto the core. Where are those sparkling eyes, That were like twins o' th' skies? Alas! two caves are they, Filled only with dismay. Where is the lip that shone Like painting newly done? Where the round cheek? and where The sunny locks of hair? And where the symmetry that bore them all? Gone like the broken clouds when the winds fall. Did I not tell thee this, over and over: The time will come when thou wilt not be fair, Nor have that conquering air, Nor be supplied with lover? Lo now! behold the fruit Of all that scorn of shame! Is there one spot the same ODE TO A DEAD BODY. In all that fondled flesh? One limb that's not a mesh Of worms, and sore offence, And horrible succulence? Tell me is there one jot, one jot remaining, To show thy lovers now the shapes which thou wast vain in? Love? - Heaven should be implored for something else: For power to weep, and to bow down one's soul. Love?'Tis a fiery dole, A punishment like Hell's. Yet thou, puffed with thy power, Who wert but as the flower That warns us in the Psalm, Didst think thy veins ran balm From an immortal fount; Didst take on thee to mount Upon an angel's wings: When thou wert but as things Clapped, on a day, in Egypt's catalogue, Ill would it help thee now, were I to say: Go! weep at thy confessor's feet! and cry 66 Help, father, or I die! See, see! he knows his prey! Even he, the dragon old! But am so bound in ill, ODE TO A DEAD BODY. That, struggle as I will, It strains me to the last, And I am losing fast My breath and my poor soul; and thou art he But thou didst smile, perhaps, thou thing besotted ! Hast thou, then, ever heard Of one that slept and rotted? That wakes not as it was. Thou shouldst have earned high Heaven; And then thou mightst have given Glad looks below, and seen Thy buried bones, serene, As odorous and as fair As evening lilies are; And in the day of the great trump of Doom ODE, go thou down, and enter The horrors of the centre: Then fly amain, with news of terrible fate, To those who think they may repent them late. Translation of LEIGH HUNT. ANDREA DEL BASSO. (Italian.) |