Poems | Page 8

bliss.
"My love awakes no love again,
My tears collect, and fall unfelt;

My sorrow touches none with pain,
My humble hopes to nothing
melt.
"For me the universe is dumb,
Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly
blind;
Life I must bound, existence sum
In the strait limits of one
mind;
"That mind my own. Oh! narrow cell;
Dark--imageless--a living tomb!

There must I sleep, there wake and dwell
Content, with palsy, pain,
and gloom."
Again she paused; a moan of pain,
A stifled sob, alone was heard;

Long silence followed--then again
Her voice the stagnant midnight
stirred.
"Must it be so? Is this my fate?
Can I nor struggle, nor contend?

And am I doomed for years to wait,
Watching death's lingering axe
descend?
"And when it falls, and when I die,
What follows? Vacant
nothingness?
The blank of lost identity?
Erasure both of pain and
bliss?
"I've heard of heaven--I would believe;
For if this earth indeed be all,

Who longest lives may deepest grieve;
Most blest, whom sorrows
soonest call.

"Oh! leaving disappointment here,
Will man find hope on yonder
coast?
Hope, which, on earth, shines never clear,
And oft in clouds
is wholly lost.
"Will he hope's source of light behold,
Fruition's spring, where doubts
expire,
And drink, in waves of living gold,
Contentment, full, for
long desire?
"Will he find bliss, which here he dreamed?
Rest, which was
weariness on earth?
Knowledge, which, if o'er life it beamed,

Served but to prove it void of worth?
"Will he find love without lust's leaven,
Love fearless, tearless,
perfect, pure,
To all with equal bounty given;
In all, unfeigned,
unfailing, sure?
"Will he, from penal sufferings free,
Released from shroud and
wormy clod,
All calm and glorious, rise and see
Creation's
Sire--Existence' God?
"Then, glancing back on Time's brief woes,
Will he behold them,
fading, fly;
Swept from Eternity's repose,
Like sullying cloud from
pure blue sky?
"If so, endure, my weary frame;
And when thy anguish strikes too
deep,
And when all troubled burns life's flame,
Think of the quiet,
final sleep;
"Think of the glorious waking-hour,
Which will not dawn on grief
and tears,
But on a ransomed spirit's power,
Certain, and free from
mortal fears.
"Seek now thy couch, and lie till morn,
Then from thy chamber, calm,
descend,
With mind nor tossed, nor anguish-torn,
But tranquil,
fixed, to wait the end.

"And when thy opening eyes shall see
Mementos, on the chamber
wall,
Of one who has forgotten thee,
Shed not the tear of acrid gall.
"The tear which, welling from the heart,
Burns where its drop
corrosive falls,
And makes each nerve, in torture, start,
At feelings
it too well recalls:
"When the sweet hope of being loved
Threw Eden sunshine on life's
way:
When every sense and feeling proved
Expectancy of brightest
day.
"When the hand trembled to receive
A thrilling clasp, which seemed
so near,
And the heart ventured to believe
Another heart esteemed it
dear.
"When words, half love, all tenderness,
Were hourly heard, as hourly
spoken,
When the long, sunny days of bliss
Only by moonlight
nights were broken.
"Till, drop by drop, the cup of joy
Filled full, with purple light was
glowing,
And Faith, which watched it, sparkling high
Still never
dreamt the overflowing.
"It fell not with a sudden crashing,
It poured not out like open sluice;

No, sparkling still, and redly flashing,
Drained, drop by drop, the
generous juice.
"I saw it sink, and strove to taste it,
My eager lips approached the
brim;
The movement only seemed to waste it;
It sank to dregs, all
harsh and dim.
"These I have drunk, and they for ever
Have poisoned life and love
for me;
A draught from Sodom's lake could never
More fiery, salt,
and bitter, be.
"Oh! Love was all a thin illusion
Joy, but the desert's flying stream;


And glancing back on long delusion,
My memory grasps a hollow
dream.
"Yet whence that wondrous change of feeling,
I never knew, and
cannot learn;
Nor why my lover's eye, congealing,
Grew cold and
clouded, proud and stern.
"Nor wherefore, friendship's forms forgetting,
He careless left, and
cool withdrew;
Nor spoke of grief, nor fond regretting,
Nor ev'n
one glance of comfort threw.
"And neither word nor token sending,
Of kindness, since the parting
day,
His course, for distant regions bending,
Went, self-contained
and calm, away.
"Oh, bitter, blighting, keen sensation,
Which will not weaken, cannot
die,
Hasten thy work of desolation,
And let my tortured spirit fly!
"Vain as the passing gale, my crying;
Though lightning-struck, I must
live on;
I know, at heart, there is no dying
Of love, and ruined hope,
alone.
"Still strong and young, and warm with vigour,
Though scathed, I
long shall greenly grow;
And many a storm of wildest rigour
Shall
yet break o'er my shivered bough.
"Rebellious now to blank inertion,
My unused strength demands a
task;
Travel, and toil, and full exertion,
Are the last, only boon I
ask.
"Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming
Of death, and dubious
life to come?
I see a nearer beacon gleaming
Over dejection's sea of
gloom.
"The very wildness of my sorrow
Tells me I yet have innate force;

My track of life has been too narrow,
Effort shall trace a broader

course.
"The world is not in yonder tower,
Earth is not prisoned in that room,

'Mid whose dark panels, hour by hour,
I've sat, the slave and