Buona Notte

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.