nly grasp
A fleeting shadow? What thou seek'st is not:--
And what thou lov'st thou now destroy'st:--thou see'st
A semblance only;--a reflected shade--
Nought of itself: with thee it came;--with thee
It stays;--and with thee, if thou could'st, would go.
Not hunger's power has force to drag him thence;
Nor cares of sleep oppress him. Thrown along
The shaded grass, he bends insatiate eyes
Tow'rds the fallacious beauty;--by those eyes
He perishes. Now half-uprais'd, his arms
Outspread, to all the groves around he cry'd:--
"Ye woods, whose darken'd shades so oft have given
"Convenient privacies to lovers, say,
"Saw you e'er one so cruelly who lov'd?
"In ages heap'd on ages you have stood,
"Remember ye a youth who pin'd as I?
"Pleas'd with the object, I its form behold;
"But what I see, and what so pleases flies.
"I find it not: in such bewilder'd maze
"The lover stands. And what my grief augments,
"No mighty seas divide us; lengthen'd roads;
"Nor lofty hills; nor high embattled walls,
"With portals clos'd: asunder are we held
"By trivial drops of water. It no less
"Than I, would give th' embrace; for when I bend
"My lips to kiss it in the limpid stream;
"With rising lips to meet, it anxious strives:
"Then might you think we touch, so faint a line
"Sunders us lovers. Come! whate'er thou art,
"Come hither! why thus mock me, dearest form?
"Why fly my wooing thus? My beauty sure,
"Nor youth are such as should provoke thy flight:
"For numerous nymphs for me have burn'd. Some hope
"Thy kindly sympathizing face affords;
"And when my anxious arms I stretch,--thy arms
"Advance to clasp me:--when I smile, thou smil'st:
"And often have I noted, when the tears
"Stream'd down my cheeks, a rivulet on thine:
"I nod,--thou, answering, noddest: and those lips,
"Those beauteous lips, whose movements plain I see,
"Words utter sure to mine,--though I forbid,
"The sounds to hear. In thee am I!--no more
"My shadow me deceives: I see the whole;
"Love for myself consumes me:--flames self-rais'd,
"Myself torment. What hope? be woo'd,--or woo?
"Wooing, or being woo'd, where is my gain?
"Myself I wish, and plenty makes me poor.
"Would that my body from itself could part!
"Strange wish for lovers, what most dear they love,
"Absent to pray. Grief undermines my strength;
"Nor long my life can linger;--immature,
"In youth I perish: but in
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