Long, long shall I rue thee, In secret we met In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? STANZAS FOR MUSIC. "O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit." GRAY'S Poemata. THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again. Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 't is where the ice appears. Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath. Oh could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene; As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So, midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me. . STANZAS FOR AUGUSTA. THOUGH the day of my destiny 's over, And the star of my fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted Then when nature around me is smiling, Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, It is that they bear me from thee. Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd, There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn They may torture, but shall not subdue me 'Tis of thee that I think not of them. Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though slander'd, thou never could'st shake, Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, And more than I once could foresee, From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee. SOLITUDE. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto ii. Stanzas 25, 26.) To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, |