And thus when fallen, faint, and bruised, I see another's glad success,
I may have wrongfully accused Your heart of vulgar fickleness: But even now, in calm review Of all I lost and all I won,
I cannot deem you wholly true, Nor wholly just what you have done.
'TWOULD seem the world were large enough to hold Both me and thee:
But now I find in space by thee controlled No room for me.
We portioned all between us, as was fair; That time is past;
And now I would recover my lost share, Which still thou hast.
For that old love on which we both did live,- Keep it who can !
Yet give me back the love I used to give To God and man.
Give me my young ambition,-my fresh fire Of high emprize;
Give me the sweet indefinite desire
That lit mine eyes :
Give me my sense of pleasure ;-give me all My range of dreams;
Give me my power at sunset to recall The noontide's beams;
If not my smiles, at least give back my tears, And leave me free
To weep that all which man and nature cheers Is lost with thee!
Look at the leaves I gather up in trembling,- Little to see, and sere, and time-bewasted, But they are other than the tree can bear now, For they are mine!
Deep as the tumult in an arched sea-cave, Out of the Past these antiquated voices Fall on my heart's ear; I must listen to them, For they are mine!
Whose is this hand that wheresoe'er it wanders, Traces in light words thoughts that come as lightly? Who was the king of all this soul-dominion? I? Was it mine?
With what a healthful appetite of spirit, Sits he at Life's inevitable banquet, Tasting delight in every thing before him! Could this be mine?
See! how he twists his coronals of fancy,
Out of all blossoms, knowing not the poison,- How his young eye is meshed in the enchantment! And it was mine!
What, is this I?—this miserable complex, Losing and gaining, only knit together By the ever-bursting fibres of remembrance,— What is this mine?
Surely we are by feeling as by knowing,- Changing our hearts our being changes with them; Take them away,-these spectres of my boyhood, They are not mine.
IT is not for what He would be to me now,
If he still were here, that I mourn him so :
It is for the thought of a broken vow,
And for what he was to me long ago.
Strange, while he lived and moved upon earth,
Though I would not, and could not, have seen him again, His being to me had an infinite worth,
And the void of his loss is an infinite pain.
I had but to utter his name, and my youth Rose up in my soul, and my blood grew warm; And I hardly remembered the broken truth, And I wholly remembered the ancient charm.
I watched the' unfolding scenes of his life, From' the lonely retreat where my heart reposed; 'Twas a magical drama-a fabulous strife; Now' the curtain has fallen, the volume is closed.
The sense of my very self grows dim,
With nothing but Self either here or beyond; That Self which would have been lost in him, Had he only died ere he broke the bond.
SISTER Sorrow! sit beside me, Or, if I must wander, guide me; Let me take thy hand in mine, Cold alike are mine and thine.
Think not, Sorrow, that I hate thee,— Think not I am frightened at thee,- Thou art come for some good end,
I will treat thee as a friend.
I will say that thou art bound My unshielded soul to wound By some force without thy will And art tender-minded still.
I will say thou givest scope To the breath and light of hope; That thy gentle tears have weight Hardest hearts to penetrate :
That thy shadow brings together Friends long lost in sunny weather, With an hundred offices
Beautiful and blest as these.
Softly takest Thou the crown From my haughty temples down; Place it on thine own pale brow, Pleasure wears one,-why not Thou?
Let the blossoms glisten there On thy long unbanded hair, And when I have borne my pain, Thou wilt give them me again.
If Thou goest, sister Sorrow! I shall look for Thee to-morrow,— I shall often see Thee drest As a masquerading guest :
And howe'er Thou hid'st the name, I shall know Thee still the same As Thou sitt'st beside me now, With my garland on thy brow.
EYES which can but ill define Shapes that rise about and near, Through the far horizon's line Stretch a vision free and clear:
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