Thou hadst lain lost and dying, prompted not
My feet had struck that pathway, and I could,
With the neglected sunshine of my hair,
Have clasped thee from the hungry jaws of Death,
And on my heart, as on a wave of light
Have lulled thee to the beauty of soft dreams.
Weak, weak imagination! be dissolved
Like a chance snowflake in a sea of fire.
Let the poor-spirited children of Despair
Hang on the sepulchre of buried Hope
The fadeless garlands of undying song.
Though such gift turned on its pearly hinge
Sweet Mercy's gate, I would not so debase me.
Shut out from heaven, I, by the arch-fiend's wing,
As by a star, would move, and radiantly
Go down to sleep in Fame's bright arms the while
Hard by, her handmaids, the still centuries
Lilies and sunshine braided for my brow.
Angel of Darkness, give, O give me hate
For the blind weakness of my passionate love!
And if thou knowest sweet pity, stretch thy wing,
Spotted with sin and seamed with veins of fire,
Between the gate of heaven and my life's prayer.
For loving, thou didst leave me; and, for that
The lowly straw-roof of a peasant's shed
Sheltered my cradle slumbers, and that Morn,
Clasping about my neck her dewy arms,
Drew to the mountains my unfashioned youth,
Where sunbeams built bright arches, and the wind
Winnowed the roses down about my feet
And as their drift of leaves my bosom was,
Till the cursed hour, when pride was pillowed there,
Crimsoned its beauty with the fires of hell.
God hide from me the time when first I knew
Thy shame to call a low-born maiden, Bride!
Methinks I could have lifted my pale hands
Though bandaged back with grave-clothes, in that hour
To cover my hot forehead from thy kiss.
For the heart strengthens when its food is truth,
And o'er the passion-shaken bosom, trail
And burn the lightnings of its love-lit fires
Like a bright banner streaming on the storm.
The day was almost over; on the hills
The parting light was flitting like a ghost,
And like a trembling lover eve's sweet star,
In the dim leafy reach of the thick woods,
Stood gazing in the blue eyes of the night.
But not the beauty of the place nor hour
Moved my wild heart with tempests of such bliss
As shake the bosom of a god, new-winged,
When first in his blue pathway up the skies
He feels the embrace of immortality.
A little moment, and the world was changed—
Truth, like a planet striking through the dark,
Shone cold and clear, and I was what I am,
Listening along the wilderness of life
For faint echoes of lost melody.
The moonlight gather'd itself back from me
And slanted its pale pinions to the dust.
The drowsy gust, bedded in luscious blooms,
Startled, as 'twere at the death-throes of peace,
Down through the darkness moaningly fled off.
O mournful Past! how thou dost cling and cling—
Like a forsaken maiden to false hope—
To the tired bosom of the living hour,
Which, from thy weak embrace, the future time
Jocundly beckons with a roseate hand.
And, round about me honeyed memories drift
From the fair eminences of young hope,
Like flowers blown down the hills of Paradise,
By some soft wave of golden harmony,
Until the glorious smile of summers gone
Lights the dull offing of the sea of Death.
And though no friend nor brother ever made
My soul the burden of one prayer to Heaven,
I dread to go alone into the grave,
And fold my cold arms emptily away
From the bright shadow of such loveliness.
Can the dull mist where swart October hides
His wrinkled front and tawny cheek, wind-shorn,
Be sprinkled with the orange fire that binds
Away from her soft lap o'erbrimmed with flowers,
The dew-wet tresses of the virgin May?
Or can the heart just sunken from the day
Feed on the beauty of the noontide smile?—
O it is well life's fair things fade so soon,
Else we could never take our clinging hands
From Beauty's nestling bosom—never put
The red wine of love's kisses sternly back,
And feel the dull dust sitting on our lips
Until the very grass grew over us.
O it is well! else for this beautiful life
Our overtempted hearts would sell away
The shining coronals of Paradise.
In the gray branches of the oaks, starlit,
I hear the heavy murmurs of the winds,
Like the low plains of evil witches, held
By drear enchantments from their demon loves.
Another night-time, and I shall have found
A
