To wean me from mine anguish here. To bear, forgiving and forgiven: II. Away, away! ye notes of woe! Be silent, thou once soothing strain, On what I am-on what I was. The voice that made those sounds more sweet Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled; And now their softest notes repeat A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee, Beloved dust! since dust thou art; And all that once was harmony Is worse than discord to my heart! "Tis silent all! but on my ear The well-remember'd echoes thrill; I hear a voice I would not hear, A voice that now might well be still, A star that trembled o'er the deep, Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. But he, who through life's dreary way Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath, Will long lament the vanish'd ray That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. One struggle more, and I am free From pangs that rend my heart in twain; One last long sigh to love and thee, Then back to busy life again. It suits me well to mingle now With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below, What future grief can touch me more? Then bring me wine, the banquet bring, Man was not form'd to live alone: I'll be that light unmeaning thing That smiles with all, and weeps with none. It was not thus in days more dear, It never would have been, but thou Hast fled, and left me lonely here; Thou 'rt nothing, all are nothing now. The smile that sorrow fain would wear Though pleasure fires the maddening soul, On many a lone and lovely night For then I deem'd the heavenly light My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! Or break the heart to which thou 'rt prest! Oh! what are thousand living loves IV. And thou art dead, as young and fair And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though earth received them in her bed, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, It is enough for me to prove That what I loved and long must love To me there needs no stone to tell, Yet did I love thee to the last Who didst not change through all the past, The love where death has set his seal, Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine: The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, Shall never more be thine. The silence of that dreamless sleep I envy now too much to weep; Nor need I to repine That all those charms have passed away; And yet it were a greater grief I know not if I could have borne The night that followed such a morn Thy day without a cloud hath past, As stars that shoot along the sky As once I wept, if I could weep To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, |