Whose every thought of self should raise A blush to burn my cheek.
But song has touch'd my lips with fire,
And made my heart a shrine;
For what, although alloy'd, debased,
Is in itself divine.
I am, myself, but a vile link
Amid life's weary chain;
But I have spoken hallow'd words,
Oh do not say in vain!
My first, my last, my only wish,-
Say, will my charmed chords
Wake to the morning light of fame,
And breathe again my words?
Will the young maiden, when her tears, Alone in moonlight shine
Tears for the absent and the loved -
Murmur some song of mine?
Will the pale youth, by his dim lamp, Himself a dying flame,
From many an antique scroll beside, Choose that which bears my name?
Let music make less terrible
The silence of the dead;
I care not, so my spirit last
Long after life has fled.
SHE loved you when the sunny light
Of bliss was on your brow;
That bliss has sunk in sorrow's night,
And yet she loves you now.
She loved you when your joyous tone
Taught every heart to thrill;
The sweetness of that tongue is gone,
And yet she loves you still.
She loved you when you proudly stept
The gayest of the gay;
That pride the blight of time hath swept,
Unlike her love, away.
She loved you when your home and heart
Of fortune's smile could boast;
She saw that smile decay-depart-
And then she loved you most.
Oh, such the generous faith that glows
In woman's gentle breast;
'Tis like that star that stays and glows
Alone in night's dark vest;
That stays because each other ray
Has left the lonely shore,
And that the wanderer on his way
Then wants her light the more.
METHINKS We must have known some former state More glorious than our present, and the heart Is haunted with dim memories, shadows left By past magnificence; and hence we pine With vain aspirings, hopes that fill the eyes With bitter tears for their own vanity. Remembrance makes the poet; 't is the past Lingering within him, with a keener sense Than is upon the thoughts of common men, Of what has been, that fills the actual world With unreal likenesses of lovely shapes, That were and are not; and the fairer they, The more their contrast with existing things; The more his power, the greater is his grief.
Are we then fallen from some noble star, Whose consciousness is as an unknown curse, And we feel capable of happiness
Only to know it is not of our sphere?
I have sung passionate songs of beating hearts;
Perhaps it had been better they had drawn
Their inspiration from an inward source.
Had I known even an unhappy love,
It would have flung an interest round life
Mine never knew. This is an empty wish;
Our feelings are not fires to light at will
Our nature's fine and subtle mysteries;
We may control them, but may not create,
And love less than its fellows. I have fed
Perhaps too much upon the lotos fruits
Imagination yields, fruits which unfit
The palate for the more substantial food
Of our own land-reality. I made
My heart too like a temple for a home;
My thoughts were birds of paradise, that breathed
The airs of heaven, but died on touching earth.
-The knight whose deeds were stainless as his crest,
Who made my name his watchword in the field;
The poet with immortal words, whose heart
I shared with beauty; or the patriot,
Whose eloquence was power, who made my smile
His recompense amid the toil which shaped
A nation's destiny: these, such as these,
The glorified the passionate—the brave -
In these I might have found the head and heart
I could have worship'd. Where are such as these?
- Not mid gay cavaliers, who make the dance
Pleasant with graceful flatteries; whose words
A passing moment might light up my cheek,
But haunted not my solitude. The fault
Has been my own; perhaps I ask'd too much:
Yet let me say, what firmly I believe,
Love can be-ay, and is. I held that Love
Which chooseth from a thousand only one,
To be the object of that tenderness
Natural to every heart; which can resign
Its own best happiness for one dear sake;
Can bear with absence; hath no part in Hope, -
For Hope is somewhat selfish,-Love is not,
And doth prefer another to itself.
Unchangeable and generous, what, like Love,
Can melt away the dross of worldliness.
Can elevate, refine, and make the heart
Of that pure gold which is the fitting shrine
For fire, as sacred as e'er came from heaven?
No more of this:
one word may read my heart,
And that one word is utter weariness!
Yet sometimes I look round with vain regret,
And think I will re-string my lute, and nerve
My woman's hand for nobler enterprise;
But the day never comes. Alas! we make
A ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,
But sleep ourselves at the foot: our.high resolves
Look down upon our slumbering acts.
Oн, never had the poet's lute a hope,
An aim so glorious as it now may have,
In this our social state, where petty cares
And mercenary interests only look
Upon the present's littleness, and shrink
From the bold future, and the stately past,-
Where the smooth surface of society
Is polish'd by deceit, and the warm heart
With all its kind affections' early flow,
Flung back upon itself, forgets to beat,
At least for others: 't is the poet's gift
To melt these frozen waters into tears,
By sympathy with sorrows not our own,
By wakening memory with those mournful notes,
Whose music is the thoughts of early years,
When truth was on the lip, and feelings wore
The sweetness and the freshness of their morn.
Young poet, if thy dreams have not such hope
To purify, refine, exalt, subdue,
To touch the selfish, and to shame the vain
Out of themselves, by gentle mournfulness,
Or chords that rouse some aim of enterprise,
Lofty and pure, and meant for general good;
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