Victories of Love | Page 5

to me?Were more than all morality,?Had not the old, sweet, feverous ill?Left me the master of my will!
So, Mother, feel at rest, and please?To send my books on board. With these,?When I go hence, all idle hours?Shall help my pleasures and my powers.?I've time, you know, to fill my post,?And yet make up for schooling lost?Through young sea-service. They all speak?German with ease; and this, with Greek,?(Which Dr. Churchill thought I knew,)?And history, which I fail'd in too,?Will stop a gap I somewhat dread,?After the happy life I've led?With these my friends; and sweet 'twill be?To abridge the space from them to me.
II. FROM MRS. GRAHAM.
My Child, Honoria Churchill sways?A double power through Charlotte Hayes.?In minds to first-love's memory pledged?The second Cupid's born full-fledged.?I saw, and trembled for the day?When you should see her beauty, gay?And pure as apple-blooms, that show?Outside a blush and inside snow,?Her high and touching elegance?Of order'd life as free as chance.?Ah, haste from her bewitching side,?No friend for you, far less a bride!?But, warning from a hope so wild,?I wrong you. Yet this know, my Child:?He that but once too nearly hears?The music of forefended spheres,?Is thenceforth lonely, and for all?His days like one who treads the Wall?Of China, and, on this hand, sees?Cities and their civilities,?And on the other, lions. Well,?(Your rash reply I thus foretell.)?Good is the knowledge of what's fair,?Though bought with temporal despair!?Yes, good for one, but not for two.?Will it content a wife that you?Should pine for love, in love's embrace,?Through having known a happier grace;?And break with inward sighs your rest,?Because, though good, she's not the best??You would, you think, be just and kind,?And keep your counsel! You will find?You cannot such a secret keep;?'Twill out, like murder, in your sleep;?A touch will tell it, though, for pride,?She may her bitter knowledge hide;?And, while she accepts love's make-believe,?You'll twice despise what you'd deceive.
I send the books. Dear Child, adieu!?Tell me of all you are and do.?I know, thank God, whate'er it be,?'Twill need no veil 'twixt you and me.
III. FROM FREDERICK.
The multitude of voices blithe?Of early day, the hissing scythe?Across the dew drawn and withdrawn,?The noisy peacock on the lawn,?These, and the sun's eye-gladding gleam,?This morning, chased the sweetest dream?That e'er shed penitential grace?On life's forgetful commonplace;?Yet 'twas no sweeter than the spell?To which I woke to say farewell.
Noon finds me many a mile removed?From her who must not be beloved;?And us the waste sea soon shall part,?Heaving for aye, without a heart!?Mother, what need to warn me so??_I_ love Miss Churchill? Ah, no, no.?I view, enchanted, from afar,?And love her as I love a star.?For, not to speak of colder fear,?Which keeps my fancy calm, I hear,?Under her life's gay progress hurl'd.?The wheels of the preponderant world,?Set sharp with swords that fool to slay?Who blunders from a poor byway,?To covet beauty with a crown?Of earthly blessing added on;?And she's so much, it seems to me,?Beyond all women womanly,?I dread to think how he should fare?Who came so near as to despair.
IV. FROM FREDERICK.
Yonder the sombre vessel rides?Where my obscure condition hides.?Waves scud to shore against the wind?That flings the sprinkling surf behind;?In port the bickering pennons show?Which way the ships would gladly go;?Through Edgecumb Park the rooted trees?Are tossing, reckless, in the breeze;?On top of Edgecumb's firm-set tower,?As foils, not foibles, of its power,?The light vanes do themselves adjust?To every veering of the gust:?By me alone may nought be given?To guidance of the airs of heaven??In battle or peace, in calm or storm,?Should I my daily task perform,?Better a thousand times for love,?Who should my secret soul reprove?
Beholding one like her, a man?Longs to lay down his life! How can?Aught to itself seem thus enough,?When I have so much need thereof??Blest in her place, blissful is she;?And I, departing, seem to be?Like the strange waif that comes to run?A few days flaming near the sun,?And carries back, through boundless night,?Its lessening memory of light.
Oh, my dear Mother, I confess?To a deep grief of homelessness,?Unfelt, save once, before. 'Tis years?Since such a shower of girlish tears?Disgraced me! But this wretched Inn,?At Plymouth, is so full of din,?Talkings and trampings to and fro.?And then my ship, to which I go?To-night, is no more home. I dread,?As strange, the life I long have led;?And as, when first I went to school,?And found the horror of a rule?Which only ask'd to be obey'd,?I lay and wept, of dawn afraid,?And thought, with bursting heart, of one?Who, from her little, wayward son,?Required obedience, but above?Obedience still regarded love,?So change I that enchanting place,?The abode of innocence and grace?And gaiety without reproof,?For the black gun-deck's louring roof.?Blind and inevitable law?Which makes light duties burdens, awe?Which is not reverence, laughters gain'd?At cost of purities profaned,?And whatsoever most may stir?Remorseful passion towards her,?Whom to behold is to