Sonnet Ii

RAPHAEL. BLESS'D wert thou, whom Death, and not Decay, Bore from the world on swift and shadowy wings, Ere age or weakness dimm'd one brilliant ray Of thy rapt spirit's high imaginings, While yet thy heart was full of fervid love, And thou wert haunted by resistless dreams Of all in earth beneath, or Heaven above, On which the light of beauty richest gleams,-- Dead, but not deathlike, wert thou borne along; Silent and cold, oh thou that didst combinc Sculpture, and painting, and the gift of song; While on thy brow, and on that work divine Borne with thee, glow'd from thine Italian sky A light whose glory spoke of inmmortality!