| |
[First published 1852. Reprinted 1854, ’57.]
MY 1 horse’s feet beside the lake, | |
| Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay, | |
| Sent echoes through the night to wake | |
| Each glistening strand, each heath-fring’d bay. | |
| |
| The poplar avenue was pass’d, | 5 |
| And the roof’d bridge that spans the stream. | |
| Up the steep street I hurried fast, | |
| Led 2 by thy taper’s starlike beam. | |
| |
| I came; I saw thee rise:—the blood | |
| Came flushing 3 to thy languid cheek. | 10 |
| Lock’d in each other’s arms we stood, | |
| In tears, with hearts too full to speak. | |
| |
| Days flew: ah, soon I could discern | |
| A trouble in thine alter’d air. | |
| Thy hand lay languidly in mine— | 15 |
| Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare. | |
| |
| I blame thee net:—this heart, I know, | |
| To be long lov’d was never fram’d; | |
| For something in its depths doth glow | |
| Too strange, too restless, too untam’d. | 20 |
| |
| And women—things that live and move | |
| Min’d by the fever of the soul— | |
| They seek to find in those they love | |
| Stern strength, and promise of control. | |
| |
| They ask not kindness, gentle ways; | 25 |
| These they themselves have tried and known: | |
| They ask a soul that never sways | |
| With the blind gusts which shake their own. | |
| |
| I too have felt the load I bore | |
| In a too strong emotion’s sway; | 30 |
| I too have wish’d, no woman more, | |
| This starting, feverish heart, away: | |
| |
| I too have long’d for trenchant force | |
| And will like a dividing spear; | |
| Have prais’d the keen, unscrupulous course, | 35 |
| Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear. | |
| |
| But in the world I learnt, what there | |
| Thou too wilt surely one day prove, | |
| That will, that energy, though rare, | |
| Are yet far, far less rare than love. | 40 |
| |
| Go then! till Time and Fate impress | |
| This truth on thee, be mine no more! | |
| They will: for thou, I feel, no less | |
| Than I, wert destin’d to this lore. | |
| |
| We school our manners, act our parts: | 45 |
| But He, who sees us through and through, | |
| Knows that the bent of both our hearts | |
| Was to be gentle, tranquil, true. | |
| |
| And though we wear out life, alas, | |
| Distracted as a homeless wind, | 50 |
| In beating where we must not pass, | |
| In seeking what we shall not find; | |
| |
| Yet we shall one day gain, life past, | |
| Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole; | |
| Shall see ourselves, and learn at last | 55 |
| Our true affinities of soul. | |
| |
| We shall not then deny a course | |
| To every thought the mass ignore; | |
| We shall not then call hardness force, | |
| Nor lightness wisdom any more. | 60 |
| |
| Then, in the eternal Father’s smile, | |
| Our sooth’d, encourag’d souls will dare | |
| To seem as free from pride and guile, | |
| As good, as generous, as they are. | |
| |
| Then we shall know our friends: though much | 65 |
| Will have been lost—the help in strife; | |
| The thousand sweet still joys of such | |
| As hand in hand face earthly life;— | |
| |
| Though these be lost, there will be yet | |
| A sympathy august and pure; | 70 |
| Ennobled by a vast regret, | |
| And by contrition seal’d thrice sure. | |
| |
| And we, whose ways were unlike here, | |
| May then more neighbouring courses ply; | |
| May to each other be brought near, | 75 |
| And greet across infinity. | |
| |
| How sweet, unreach’d by earthly jars, | |
| My sister! to behold with thee | |
| The hush among the shining stars, | |
| The calm upon the moonlit sea. | 80 |
| |
| How sweet to feel, on the boon air, | |
| All our unquiet pulses cease; | |
| To feel that nothing can impair | |
| The gentleness, the thirst for peace— | |
| |
| The gentleness too rudely hurl’d | 85 |
| On this wild earth of hate and fear: | |
| The thirst for peace a raving world | |
| Would never let us satiate here. | |
