Passion? not hers, within whose virgin eyes
All Eden lay. And I remember how
I drank the Heaven of her gaze with sighs
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.

So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz, set within the sear
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.

Sweetheart? not she whose voice was music sweet;
Whose face was sweeter than melodious prayer.
Sweetheart I called her. When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope or heart to one despair?

So have I seen a rose set round with thorn,
Sung to and sung to by a bird of spring,
And when, breast-pierced, the bird lay all forlorn,
The rose bloomed on, fair and unnoticing.

1.
We meet not as we parted,
We feel more than all may see;
My bosom is heavy-hearted,
And thine full of doubt for me: -
One moment has bound the free.

2.
That moment is gone for ever,
Like lightning that flashed and died -
Like a snowflake upon the river -
Like a sunbeam upon the tide,
Which the dark shadows hide.

3.
That moment from time was singled
As the first of a life of pain;
The cup of its joy was mingled
- Delusion too sweet though vain!
Too sweet to be mine again.

4.
Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden
That its life was crushed by you,
Ye would not have then forbidden
The death which a heart so true
Sought in your briny dew.

5.
...
...
...
Methinks too little cost<...

Think not of it, sweet one, so;
Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any, any where.


Do not look so sad, sweet one,
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then, it is gone,
O 'twas born to die!


Still so pale? then, dearest, weep;
Weep, I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.


Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are tenderer still.


Yet, as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses,
E'en let us too! but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.

Weeping for another's woe,
Tears flow then that would not flow
When our sorrow was our own,
And the deadly, stiffening blow
Was upon our own heart given
In the moments that have flown!

Cringing at another's cry
In the hollow world of grief
Stills the anguish of our pain
For the fate that made us die
To our hopes as sweet as vain;
And our tears can flow again!

One storm blows the night this way,
But another brings the day.

The sun is lying on the garden-wall,
The full red rose is sweetening all the air,
The day is happier than a dream most fair;
The evening weaves afar a wide-spread pall,
And lo! sun, day, and rose, no longer there!

I have a lover now my life is young,
I have a love to keep this many a day;
My heart will hold it when my life is gray,
My love will last although my heart be wrung.
My life, my heart, my love shall fade away!

O lover loved, the day has only gone!
In death or life, our love can only go;
Never forgotten is the joy we know,
We follow memory when life is done:
No wave is lost in all the tides that flow.

Indulge no more may we
In this sweet-bitter pastime:
The love-light shines the last time
Between you, Dear, and me.

There shall remain no trace
Of what so closely tied us,
And blank as ere love eyed us
Will be our meeting-place.

The flowers and thymy air,
Will they now miss our coming?
The dumbles thin their humming
To find we haunt not there?

Though fervent was our vow,
Though ruddily ran our pleasure,
Bliss has fulfilled its measure,
And sees its sentence now.

Ache deep; but make no moans:
Smile out; but stilly suffer:
The paths of love are rougher
Than thoroughfares of stones.

    I never heard
Of any true affection, but ’twas nipt
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
The leaves of the spring’s sweetest book, the rose.
- MIDDLETON.



It is a common practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me that, however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become impetuous, ...

Sitting alone by the window,
    Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
    To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
    How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes,
    And wait for your coming in vain.

For I know that a day approaches
    When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
    For a form I shall not see;
When the love that is now my heaven,
    The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
    And that other will be - your wife.

You will grow weary of sinning
    (Though you do not call it so),
You will long for a love that is purer
    Than the love that we two know.
God knows I have loved you dearly,

Bright summer comes, all bloom and flowers,
To garland o'er her faded bowers;
There's balm and sunshine on her wing,
But where's the friend she used to bring?
One heart is sad 'mid all the glee,
And only asks, "Oh, where is he?"

He comes not now, he comes not now,
To chase the gloom from off my brow,
He comes not with his wonted smile
The weary moments to beguile.
There's joy in every look I see,
But mine is sad, for "Where is he?"

Closed is the book we used to read;
There's none to smile, there's none to heed;
Our 'customed walk's deserted, too;
It charms not as it used to do;
The fav'rite path, the well-known tree,
All, all are whispering, "Where is he?"

This faithful heart is now a shrine
For each dear look and...

I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,
How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten
Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

The boy's woe was as keen and clear,
The boy's love just as true,
And the One Before the Last, my dear,
Hurt quite as much as you.

* * * * *

Sickly I pondered how the lover
Wrongs the unanswering tomb,
And sentimentalizes over
What earned a better doom.

Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,
Strews pinkish dust above,
And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime!
But THIS, ah, God! is Love!"

Better oblivion hide dead true loves,
Better the night...

ELIZABETH TO WALTER


He has come and he has gone,
    Meeting, parting, both are o'er;
And I feel the same dull pain,
Aching heart and throbbing brain
    Coming o'er me once again
That I often felt before.


For he is my father's son,
    And, in childhood's loving time
He and I so lone, so young,
No twin blossoms ever sprung,
No twin cherries ever clung,
    Closer than his heart and mine.

He is changed, ah me! ah me!
    Have we then a different aim?
Shall earth's glory or its gold
Make his heart to mine grow cold?
Or can new love kill the old?
    Leaving me for love and fame

Oh, my brother fair to see!
    Idol of my lonely heart,
Parting is a time of test,
Father, give him what is best,
...

The kiss had been given and taken,
And gathered to many past:
It never could reawaken;
But you heard none say: "It's the last!"

The clock showed the hour and the minute,
But you did not turn and look:
You read no finis in it,
As at closing of a book.

But you read it all too rightly
When, at a time anon,
A figure lay stretched out whitely,
And you stood looking thereon.

I

I tore your letter into strips
    No bigger than the airy feathers
    That ducks preen out in changing weathers
Upon the shifting ripple-tips.

II

In darkness on my bed alone
    I seemed to see you in a vision,
    And hear you say: "Why this derision
Of one drawn to you, though unknown?"

III

Yes, eve's quick mood had run its course,
    The night had cooled my hasty madness;
    I suffered a regretful sadness
Which deepened into real remorse.

IV

I thought what pensive patient days
    A soul must know of grain so tender,
    How much of good must grace the sender
Of such sweet words in such bright phrase.

V

Uprising then, as things unpriced
    I sought each fragment, patc...

There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning;
While evening pours its silent dew,
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair, though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart for ever?

They weep, you weep, it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And winter sheds its grief in snow
Where Autumn's leaves are lying:
Yet, these revive, and from their fate
Your fate cannot be parted:
Then, journey on, if not elate,
Still, NEVER broken-hearted!

For a season there must be pain
For a little, little space
I shall lose the sight of her face,
Take back the old life again
While She is at rest in her place.

For a season this pain must endure,
For a little, little while
I shall sigh more often than smile
Till time shall work me a cure,
And the pitiful days beguile.

For that season we must be apart,
For a little length of years,
Till my life's last hour nears,
And, above the beat of my heart,
I hear Her voice in my ears.

But I shall not understand
Being set on some later love,
Shall not know her for whom I strove,
Till she reach me forth her hand,
Saying, "Who but I have the right?"
And out of a troubled night
Shall draw me safe to the land.

Sorrow, my friend,
When shall you come again?
The wind is slow, and the bent willows send
Their silvery motions wearily down the plain.
The bird is dead
That sang this morning through the summer rain!

Sorrow, my friend,
I owe my soul to you.
And if my life with any glory end
Of tenderness for others, and the words are true,
Said, honoring, when I'm dead, -
Sorrow, to you, the mellow praise, the funeral
wreath, are due.

And yet, my friend,
When love and joy are strong,
Your terrible visage from my sight I rend
With glances to blue heaven. Hovering along,
By mine your shadow led,
"Away!" I shriek, "nor dare to work my new-sprung mercies wrong!"

Still, you are near:
Who can your care withstand?
When deep eternity shall l...

RESIGNATION

There is no flock, however watched and tended,
    But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
    But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
    And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
    Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient!    These severe afflictions
    Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
    Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
    Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
    May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death!    What seems so is transition;
    This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysi...

Shut it out of the heart this grief,
O Love, with the years grown old and hoary!
And let in joy that life is brief,
And give God thanks for the end of the story.

The bond of the flesh is transitory,
And beauty goes with the lapse of years
The brow's white rose and the hair's dark glory
God be thanked for the severing shears!

Over the past, Heart, waste no tears!
Over the past and all its madness,
Its wine and wormwood, hopes and fears,
That never were worth a moment's sadness.

Here she lies who was part o' its gladness,
Wife and mistress, and shared its woe,
The good of life as well as its badness,
Look on her face and see if you know.

Is this the face? yea, ask it slow!
The hair, the form, that we used to cherish?
Where is th...