There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

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 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.

The day without a cloud hath pass'd, 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.

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.

WHEN WE TWO PARTED.

WHEN we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me -
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well:

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.