Poems | Page 9

prey
of gloom.
"One feeling--turned to utter anguish,
Is not my being's only aim;

When, lorn and loveless, life will languish,
But courage can revive
the flame.
"He, when he left me, went a roving
To sunny climes, beyond the sea;

And I, the weight of woe removing,
Am free and fetterless as he.
"New scenes, new language, skies less clouded,
May once more wake
the wish to live;
Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded,
New
pictures to the mind may give.
"New forms and faces, passing ever,
May hide the one I still retain,

Defined, and fixed, and fading never,
Stamped deep on vision, heart,
and brain.
"And we might meet--time may have changed him;
Chance may
reveal the mystery,
The secret influence which estranged him;
Love
may restore him yet to me.
"False thought--false hope--in scorn be banished!
I am not loved--nor
loved have been;
Recall not, then, the dreams scarce vanished;

Traitors! mislead me not again!
"To words like yours I bid defiance,
'Tis such my mental wreck have
made;
Of God alone, and self-reliance,
I ask for solace--hope for
aid.
"Morn comes--and ere meridian glory
O'er these, my natal woods,
shall smile,
Both lonely wood and mansion hoary
I'll leave behind,
full many a mile."

GILBERT.
I. THE GARDEN.
Above the city hung the moon,
Right o'er a plot of ground
Where
flowers and orchard-trees were fenced
With lofty walls around:

'Twas Gilbert's garden--there to-night
Awhile he walked alone;
And,
tired with sedentary toil,
Mused where the moonlight shone.
This garden, in a city-heart,
Lay still as houseless wild,
Though
many-windowed mansion fronts
Were round it; closely piled;
But
thick their walls, and those within
Lived lives by noise unstirred ;

Like wafting of an angel's wing,
Time's flight by them was heard.
Some soft piano-notes alone
Were sweet as faintly given,
Where
ladies, doubtless, cheered the hearth
With song that winter-even.

The city's many-mingled sounds
Rose like the hum of ocean;
They
rather lulled the heart than roused
Its pulse to faster motion.
Gilbert has paced the single walk
An hour, yet is not weary;
And,
though it be a winter night
He feels nor cold nor dreary.
The prime
of life is in his veins,
And sends his blood fast flowing,
And
Fancy's fervour warms the thoughts
Now in his bosom glowing.
Those thoughts recur to early love,
Or what he love would name,

Though haply Gilbert's secret deeds
Might other title claim.
Such
theme not oft his mind absorbs,
He to the world clings fast,
And too
much for the present lives,
To linger o'er the past.
But now the evening's deep repose
Has glided to his soul;
That
moonlight falls on Memory,
And shows her fading scroll.
One
name appears in every line

The gentle rays shine o'er,
And still he
smiles and still repeats
That one name--Elinor.
There is no sorrow in his smile,
No kindness in his tone;
The

triumph of a selfish heart
Speaks coldly there alone;
He says: "She
loved me more than life;
And truly it was sweet
To see so fair a
woman kneel,
In bondage, at my feet.
"There was a sort of quiet bliss
To be so deeply loved,
To gaze on
trembling eagerness
And sit myself unmoved.
And when it pleased
my pride to grant
At last some rare caress,
To feel the fever of that
hand
My fingers deigned to press.
"'Twas sweet to see her strive to hide
What every glance revealed;

Endowed, the while, with despot-might
Her destiny to wield.
I
knew myself no perfect man,
Nor, as she deemed, divine;
I knew
that I was glorious--but
By her reflected shine;
"Her youth, her native energy,
Her powers new-born and fresh,

'Twas these with Godhead sanctified
My sensual frame of flesh.

Yet, like a god did I descend
At last, to meet her love;
And, like a
god, I then withdrew
To my own heaven above.
"And never more could she invoke
My presence to her sphere;
No
prayer, no plaint, no cry of hers
Could win my awful ear.
I knew
her blinded constancy
Would ne'er my deeds betray,
And, calm in
conscience, whole in heart.
I went my tranquil way.
"Yet, sometimes, I still feel a wish,
The fond and flattering pain
Of
passion's anguish to create
In her young breast again.
Bright was
the lustre of her eyes,
When they caught fire from mine;
If I had
power--this very hour,
Again I'd light their shine.
"But where she is, or how she lives,

I have no clue to know;
I've
heard she long my absence pined,
And left her home in woe.
But
busied, then, in gathering gold,
As I am busied now,
I could not
turn from such pursuit,
To weep a broken vow.

"Nor could I give to fatal risk
The fame I ever prized;
Even now, I
fear, that precious fame
Is too much compromised."
An inward
trouble dims his eye,
Some riddle he would solve;
Some method to
unloose a knot,
His anxious thoughts revolve.
He, pensive, leans against a tree,
A leafy evergreen,
The boughs,
the moonlight, intercept,
And hide him like a screen
He starts--the
tree shakes with his tremor,
Yet nothing near him pass'd;
He hurries
up the garden alley,
In strangely sudden haste.
With shaking hand, he lifts the latchet,
Steps o'er the threshold stone;

The heavy door slips from his fingers--
It shuts, and he is gone.

What touched, transfixed, appalled, his soul?--
A nervous thought, no
more;
'Twill sink like stone in placid pool,
And calm close
smoothly o'er.
II. THE PARLOUR.
Warm is the parlour