Selected Poems of Francis Thompson — Buona Notte

Jane Williams, in her last letter to Shelley, wrote: "Why do you talk of never enjoying moments like the past?

Are you going to join your friend Plato, or do you expect I shall do so soon?

Buona Notte."

That letter was dated July 6th; Shelley was drowned on the 8th; and this is his imagined reply to it from another world:-- 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 can'st 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.