Poems | Page 5

tongue,?She gave her hand, then suffered wrong;?Oppressed, ill-used, she faded young,?And died of grief by slow decay.
Open that casket-look how bright?Those jewels flash upon the sight;?The brilliants have not lost a ray?Of lustre, since her wedding day.?But see--upon that pearly chain--?How dim lies Time's discolouring stain!?I've seen that by her daughter worn:?For, ere she died, a child was born;--?A child that ne'er its mother knew,?That lone, and almost friendless grew;?For, ever, when its step drew nigh,?Averted was the father's eye;?And then, a life impure and wild?Made him a stranger to his child:?Absorbed in vice, he little cared?On what she did, or how she fared.?The love withheld she never sought,?She grew uncherished--learnt untaught;?To her the inward life of thought?Full soon was open laid.?I know not if her friendlessness?Did sometimes on her spirit press,?But plaint she never made.?The book-shelves were her darling treasure,?She rarely seemed the time to measure?While she could read alone.?And she too loved the twilight wood?And often, in her mother's mood,?Away to yonder hill would hie,?Like her, to watch the setting sun,?Or see the stars born, one by one,?Out of the darkening sky.?Nor would she leave that hill till night?Trembled from pole to pole with light;?Even then, upon her homeward way,?Long--long her wandering steps delayed?To quit the sombre forest shade,?Through which her eerie pathway lay.?You ask if she had beauty's grace??I know not--but a nobler face?My eyes have seldom seen;?A keen and fine intelligence,?And, better still, the truest sense?Were in her speaking mien.?But bloom or lustre was there none,?Only at moments, fitful shone?An ardour in her eye,?That kindled on her cheek a flush,?Warm as a red sky's passing blush?And quick with energy.?Her speech, too, was not common speech,?No wish to shine, or aim to teach,?Was in her words displayed:?She still began with quiet sense,?But oft the force of eloquence?Came to her lips in aid;?Language and voice unconscious changed,?And thoughts, in other words arranged,?Her fervid soul transfused?Into the hearts of those who heard,?And transient strength and ardour stirred,?In minds to strength unused,?Yet in gay crowd or festal glare,?Grave and retiring was her air;?'Twas seldom, save with me alone,?That fire of feeling freely shone;?She loved not awe's nor wonder's gaze,?Nor even exaggerated praise,?Nor even notice, if too keen?The curious gazer searched her mien.?Nature's own green expanse revealed?The world, the pleasures, she could prize;?On free hill-side, in sunny field,?In quiet spots by woods concealed,?Grew wild and fresh her chosen joys,?Yet Nature's feelings deeply lay?In that endowed and youthful frame;?Shrined in her heart and hid from day,?They burned unseen with silent flame.?In youth's first search for mental light,?She lived but to reflect and learn,?But soon her mind's maturer might?For stronger task did pant and yearn;?And stronger task did fate assign,?Task that a giant's strength might strain;?To suffer long and ne'er repine,?Be calm in frenzy, smile at pain.
Pale with the secret war of feeling,?Sustained with courage, mute, yet high;?The wounds at which she bled, revealing?Only by altered cheek and eye;
She bore in silence--but when passion?Surged in her soul with ceaseless foam,?The storm at last brought desolation,?And drove her exiled from her home.
And silent still, she straight assembled?The wrecks of strength her soul retained;?For though the wasted body trembled,?The unconquered mind, to quail, disdained.
She crossed the sea--now lone she wanders?By Seine's, or Rhine's, or Arno's flow;?Fain would I know if distance renders?Relief or comfort to her woe.
Fain would I know if, henceforth, ever,?These eyes shall read in hers again,?That light of love which faded never,?Though dimmed so long with secret pain.
She will return, but cold and altered,?Like all whose hopes too soon depart;?Like all on whom have beat, unsheltered,?The bitter blasts that blight the heart.
No more shall I behold her lying?Calm on a pillow, smoothed by me;?No more that spirit, worn with sighing,?Will know the rest of infancy.
If still the paths of lore she follow,?'Twill be with tired and goaded will;?She'll only toil, the aching hollow,?The joyless blank of life to fill.
And oh! full oft, quite spent and weary,?Her hand will pause, her head decline;?That labour seems so hard and dreary,?On which no ray of hope may shine.
Thus the pale blight of time and sorrow?Will shade with grey her soft, dark hair;?Then comes the day that knows no morrow,?And death succeeds to long despair.
So speaks experience, sage and hoary;?I see it plainly, know it well,?Like one who, having read a story,?Each incident therein can tell.
Touch not that ring; 'twas his, the sire?Of that forsaken child;?And nought his relics can inspire?Save memories, sin-defiled.
I, who sat by his wife's death-bed,?I, who his daughter loved,?Could almost curse the guilty dead,?For woes the guiltless proved.
And heaven did curse--they found him laid,?When crime for wrath was rife,?Cold--with the suicidal blade?Clutched in his desperate gripe.
'Twas near that long deserted hut,?Which in the wood decays,?Death's axe, self-wielded, struck his root,?And lopped his desperate days.
You know the spot, where three black trees,?Lift up