All sense that makes the difference between
This place and that, this circumstance and that, Between to-morrow's life and never more?
I know to-morrow will be as to-day,—
Sun-rise-birds' chirp-the stolid hours roll on,
Careless of what they crush—without a thought
That in the world there is a man the less,
A mind the less to' engender noble deeds,
A heart the less to beat for other men,
A soul the less to claim eternal life,-
For whom to-morrow is as never more.
What is the presence of continuous pain,
Some sharper and some better to be borne,
Calling out courage in the patient man,
Matched with this absence of the power to love,
This loss of that within which can stand up
In the broad face of Heaven, and say, ""Tis I,
Living and suffering for some secret end
Of the mysterious Master of us all :"
Is it that I have given away Myself,
And know not where to look for it again
In any corner of the field of Time,
While Not to-morrow is as Never more?
THE words that trembled on your lips
Were uttered not-I know it well;
The tears that would your eyes eclipse
Were checked and smothered, ere they fell :
The looks and smiles I gained from you
Were little more than others won,
And yet you are not wholly true,
Nor wholly just what you have done.
You know, at least you might have known,
That every little grace you gave,—
Your voice's somewhat lowered tone,-
Your hand's faint shake or parting wave,-
Your every sympathetic look
At words that chanced your soul to touch,
While reading from some favourite book,
Were much to me-alas, how much!
You might have seen-perhaps you saw―
How all of these were steps of hope
On which I rose, in joy and awe,
Up to my passion's lofty scope;
How after each, a firmer tread
I planted on the slippery ground,
And higher raised my ventur❜ous head,
And ever new assurance found.
May be, without a further thought,
It only pleased you thus to please,
And thus to kindly feelings wrought
You measured not the sweet degrees;
Yet, though you hardly understood
Where I was following at your call,
You might I dare to say you should-
Have thought how far I had to fall.
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
that all which man and nature cheers
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.
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