Poems | Page 4

more shall Fate be tempted with my wealth,?Lest covetous it rob me of my all.
[A pause.
And yet, these are but dreams, poor selfish fears,?That scum-like float and dim Love's limpid tide.?Shall I thus cage my bird from liberty,?And let it beat its life out on the bars,?Lest some dear bliss detain it in the heavens??Shall I spill rashly forth this wine of joy,?Because for me within the crystal cup?Some dregs may haply rest when she has drunk??Ah, no! for her alone shall I take thought.?The first pure sacrifice of Love is self!?There is no peril. God that sends the power?Will send the guardian angel to direct.?I work for her--Heaven speed the work of love.
[Enters the room.
MABEL.
I waited for thee, love--'tis past the hour,?And on my dial slumbers Time in shade?When thou comest not to sun me.
ORAN.
I but stood?There on the threshold, following thy voice?Away, away through mazy lengths of dreams.?Music--low music from the lips we love,?Is the true siren that still lures the soul?From cares of earth to the Enchanted Isles.
MABEL.
Methinks that thou art sad to-day, my husband.?Let me share with thee pain as well as joy;?It is the sweetest right that love can claim.?We give our joys to strangers, but our grief?Sighs itself only forth for those we love.?We hang our sorrows on the loved one's ear,?Like jewell'd pendents for a bridal feast.
ORAN.
Tell me, my Mabel, if within this sleep,?To which mine art oft leads thee, there should come?Some angel bright with Heaven's reflected light,?Wooing thee upward with the songs of bliss,--?Tell me, my Mabel, wouldst thou freely go,?Leaving this fair earth-vesture only here,?Leaving me lornly gazing on the sky,?Blotting its sun out with my blinding tears?
MABEL.
There is no angel but the angel Death?Could sever me from thee who art all my life!?What Heaven is there but that which Love creates??What songs of Bliss, save those by Love intoned??Ah! thou to me art as the sun to Day,?That dies out with its setting utterly--?Thou art the ever-flowing crystal spring,?That keeps the fountain of my being full--?Thou art the heart that beats with measured pulse?The joyous moments of my flowing life--?Leave thee? How canst thou wrong me with the thought?
ORAN.
Dear Mabel!--Yet to-day thy brothers came,?Taxing me harshly, and in cruel terms,?With practising against thy precious life.
MABEL.
Oh, Heaven!
ORAN.
They dread these trances, whose dim fame?Hath floated on the ignorant air to them.?They deem this priceless power, new-fall'n on me,?And treasured for thy sake, my best beloved,?A most pernicious art, that may, perchance,?Work evil upon thee; say, dost thou fear??My Mabel, hast thou faith and trust in me??Shall I proceed, or break this magic wand,?Wherewith they deem that I am dower'd withal?
MABEL.
I trust in thee, my love, with perfect faith--?Am I not as the floating gossamer,?Steering through ether on thy guiding breath??Am I not as the clay within thy hand,?Taking the shape and image of thy thought??Heed not these idle tongues, that launch their doubts?In erring love against thy watchful care.?That which thou doest I accept with joy;?I wait for thee as waits a full-sail'd bark?The coming breeze to waft it o'er the sea.
ORAN.
Fear not! I do well think no peril lies?Within this power, but virtue of rare worth,?Else nevermore its wand had waved o'er thee.--?Tell me, dost bring no memory back to Earth?Of all these glorious wanderings above??No certain visions of the hidden things?Thou seest in that far mystic spirit-land?
MABEL.
Nay! it must be as thou dost tell me oft,?The soul doth lose its secrets at Earth's gate,?And all the blinding glories it hath known?Shed but their mystic influence over life.?Therefore, it may be, 'tis I nought retain?Of that which passeth in these hours of trance.
ORAN.
Yet strive once more to grasp the fleeting dreams,?Else shall I doubt that which I fondly hope.--?Sleep, love, and let thy spirit bask awhile?In Heaven's own sunshine;--yet forget not me!
[_Makes passes over her, which shortly sink?her into a state of trance._
'Tis done! she's free! and now this lovely frame?Lies tenantless, a casket whose pure gems?Now sparkle 'mid the opal lights of Heaven.?This earth seems very lone and cold to me?Now she is absent, though a little space!?My heart goes restless wandering around,?Seeking her through old haunts and vacant nooks,?Like one who, waking from some troubled dream,?Findeth his love soft stolen from his side,?And straightway seeketh in a dim amaze?All through the moonlight for her straying feet.
[A pause.
Where art thou, O my dove! about the sky??Ruffling thy breast across what honey breeze??Flashing white pinions 'gainst the golden sun,?That fain would nest thee on his ardent breast??Art thou soft floating through the joys of Heaven,?With Earth far, far beneath thee, like a star?Struggling up through the tremulous sea of light,?That sucks its life down from the eye of day??About the gate of Heaven there floats my dove,?Fann'd by the breath of melodies divine;?Opes there no casement soft to take her