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 pass'd away, I might have watch'd through long decay. The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd, The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief To watch it withering, leaf by leaf, Than see it pluck'd to-day; Since earthly eye but ill can bear To trace the change to foul from fair.
I know not if I could have borne To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past, And thou wert lovely to the last; Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high.
As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, Nor thou nor I can feel again.
Yet how much less it were to gain, Though thou hast left me free, The loveliest things that still remain, Than thus remember thee! The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread eternity, Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears Than aught, except its living years.
IF sometimes in the haunts of men Thine image from my breast may fade, The lonely hour presents again
The semblance of thy gentle shade : And now that sad and silent hour Thus much of thee can still restore, And sorrow unobserved may pour The plaint she dare not speak before.
Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile,
I waste one thought I owe to thee, And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile, Unfaithful to thy memory!
Nor deem that memory less dear, That then I seem not to repine; I would not fools should overhear One sigh that should be wholly thine. If not the goblet pass unquaff'd, It is not drain'd to banish care, The cup must hold a deadlier draught That brings a Lethe for despair. And could oblivion set my soul From all her troubled visions free, I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl That drown'd a single thought of thee.
For wert thou vanish'd from my mind, Where could my vacant bosom turn? And who would then remain behind To honour thine abandon'd urn? No, no-it is my sorrow's pride That last dear duty to fulfil; Though all the world forget beside, 'Tis meet that I remember still.
For well I know, that such had been Thy gentle care for him, who now Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene, Where none regarded him, but thou: And, oh! I feel in that was given A blessing never meant for me; Thou wert too like a dream of heaven,
For carthly love to merit thee.
ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS
ILL-FATED heart! and can it be
That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain? of care for thine and thee
Have years Alike been all employ'd in vain?
Yet precious seems each shatter'd part, And every fragment dearer grown, Since he who wears thee feels thou art A fitter emblem of his own.
[This poem and the following were written some years ago.]
FEW years have pass'd since thou and I Were firmest friends, at least in name, And childhood's gay sincerity
Preserved our feelings long the same.
But now, like me, too well thou know'st What trifles oft the heart recal;
And those who once have loved the most Too soon forget they loved at all.
And such the change the heart displays, So frail is early friendship's reign, A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's, Will view thy mind estranged again.
If so, it never shall be mine
To mourn the loss of such a heart; The fault was Nature's fault, not thine, Which made thee fickle as thou art.
As rolls the ocean's changing tide, So human feelings ebb and flow; And who would in a breast confide Where stormy passions ever glow?
It boots not, that together bred, Our childish days were days of joy ; My spring of life has quickly fled; Thou, too, hast ceased to be a boy.
And when we bid adieu to youth, Slaves to the specious world's control, We sigh a long farewell to truth; That world corrupts the noblest soul.
Ah, joyous season! when the mind Dares all things boldly but to lie; When thought, ere spoke, is unconfined, And sparkles in the placid eye.
Not so in man's maturer years, When man himself is but a tool; When interest sways our hopes and fears, And all must love and hate by rule.
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