Stern, stern is the voice of fate's fearful command, <br />When accents of horror it breathes in our ear, <br />Or compels us for aye bid adieu to the land, <br />Where exists that loved friend to our bosom so dear, <br /> <br />'Tis sterner than death o’er the shuddering wretch bending, <br />And in skeleton grasp his fell sceptre extending, <br />Like the heart-stricken deer to that loved covert wending, <br />Which never again to his eyes may appear-- <br /> <br />And ah! he may envy the heart-stricken quarry, <br />Who bids to the friend of affection farewell, <br />He may envy the bosom so bleeding and gory, <br />He may envy the sound of the drear passing knell, <br /> <br />Not so deep is his grief on his death couch reposing, <br />When on the last vision his dim eyes are closing! <br />As the outcast whose love-raptured senses are losing, <br />The last tones of thy voice on the wild breeze that swell! <br /> <br />Those tones were so soft, and so sad, that ah! never, <br />Can the sound cease to vibrate on Memory’s ear, <br />In the stern wreck of Nature for ever and ever, <br />The remembrance must live of a friend so sincere. <br /> <br />AUGUST, 1810.<br /><br />Percy Bysshe Shelley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-to-harriet/
