Francis Thompson (1859–1907)

ARIEL to Miranda:—Hear

This good-night the sea-winds bear;

And let thine unacquainted ear

Take grief for their interpreter.

Good-night! I have risen so high

Into slumber’s rarity,

Not a dream can beat its feather

Through the unsustaining ether.

Let the sea-winds make avouch

How thunder summoned me to couch,

Tempest curtained me about

And turned the sun with his own hand out:

And though I toss upon my bed

My dream is not disquieted;

Nay, deep I sleep upon the deep,

And my eyes are wet, but I do not weep;

And I fell to sleep so suddenly

That my lips are moist yet—could’st thou see—

With the good-night draught I have drunk to thee.

Thou canst not wipe them; for it was Death

Damped my lips that has dried my breath.

A little while—it is not long—

The salt shall dry on them like the song.

Now know’st thou that voice desolate,—

Mourning ruined joy’s estate,—

Reached thee through a closing gate.

‘Go’st thou to Plato?’ Ah, girl, no!

It is to Pluto that I go.