Still thine own its life retaineth,
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; And the undying thought which paineth Is-that we no more may meet.
These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.
And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!
Though his care she must forego ?
When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had bless'd!
Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may'st see, Then thy heart will softly tremble With a pulse yet true to me.
All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know ;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.
Every feeling hath been shaken;
Pride, which not a world could bow, Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now:
But 'tis done-all words are idle--
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.
Fare thee well! thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,
Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.
ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF
SEPARATION
IN THE APRIL OF 1816
A YEAR ago, you swore, fond she!
66
To love, to honour," and so forth: Such was the vow you pledged to me, And here's exactly what 'tis worth.
I
WHEN all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray-
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;
II
In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deem'd too kind,
The weak despair-the cold depart;
III
When fortune changed-and love fled far,
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star
Which rose and set not to the last.
Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!
That watch'd me as a seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
V
And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray-
Then purer spread its gentle flame,
And dash'd the darkness all away.
VI
Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,
And teach it what to brave or brookThere's more in one soft word of thine Than in the world's defied rebuke.
VII
Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,
That still unbroke, though gently bent,
Still waves with fond fidelity
Its boughs above a monument.
IX
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For Heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind-and thee the most of all.
VIII
The winds might rend—the skies might pour, But there thou wert-and still wouldst be 30 Devoted in the stormiest hour
To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
X
Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken-thine will never break; Thy heart can feel-but will not move; Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.
XI
And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found and still are fix'd in thee ;--
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert-ev'n to me.
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
It never hath found but in thee.
II
Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.
III
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
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.
IV
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake;
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
V
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one;
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun :
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.
VI
From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:
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..
EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA
I
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine :
Go where I will, to me thou art the same-
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,-
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
II
The first were nothing-had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,—
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
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