| |
| MY sister! my sweet sister! if a name | |
| Dearer and purer were, it should be thine; | |
| Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim | |
| No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: | |
| Go where I will, to me thou art the same— | 5 |
| A loved regret which I would not resign. | |
| There yet are two things in my destiny,— | |
| A world to roam through, and a home with thee. | |
| |
| The first were nothing—had I still the last, | |
| It were the haven of my happiness; | 10 |
| But other claims and other ties thou hast, | |
| And mine is not the wish to make them less. | |
| A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past | |
| Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; | |
| Reversed for him our grandsire’s fate of yore,— | 15 |
| He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. | |
| |
| If my inheritance of storms hath been | |
| In other elements, and on the rocks | |
| Of perils, overlook’d or unforeseen, | |
| I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks, | 20 |
| The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen | |
| My errors with defensive paradox; | |
| I have been cunning in mine overthrow, | |
| The careful pilot of my proper woe. | |
| |
| Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. | 25 |
| My whole life was a contest, since the day | |
| That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d | |
| The gift,—a fate, or will, that walk’d astray; | |
| And I at times have found the struggle hard, | |
| And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: | 30 |
| But now I fain would for a time survive, | |
| If but to see what next can well arrive. | |
| |
| Kingdoms and empires in my little day | |
| I have outlived, and yet I am not old: | |
| And when I look on this, the petty spray | 35 |
| Of my own years of trouble, which have roll’d | |
| Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: | |
| Something—I know not what—does still uphold | |
| A spirit of slight patience;—not in vain, | |
| Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. | 40 |
| |
| Perhaps the workings of defiance stir | |
| Within me,—or perhaps a cold despair, | |
| Brought when ills habitually recur,— | |
| Perhaps a kindlier clime, or purer air, | |
| (For even to this may change of soul refer, | 45 |
| And with light armour we may learn to bear), | |
| Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not | |
| The chief companion of a calmer lot. | |
| |
| I feel almost at times as I have felt | |
| In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, | 50 |
| Which do remember me of where I dwelt | |
| Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, | |
| Come as of yore upon me, and can melt | |
| My heart with recognition of their looks; | |
| And even at moments I could think I see | 55 |
| Some living thing to love—but none like thee. | |
| |
| Here are the Alpine landscapes which create | |
| A fund for contemplation—to admire | |
| Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; | |
| But something worthier do such scenes inspire; | 60 |
| Here to be lonely is not desolate, | |
| For much I view which I could most desire, | |
| And, above all, a lake I can behold | |
| Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. | |
| |
| Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow | 65 |
| The fool of my own wishes, and forget | |
| The solitude, which I have vaunted so, | |
| Has lost its praise in this but one regret; | |
| There may be others which I less may show!— | |
| I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet | 70 |
| I feel an ebb in my philosophy, | |
| And the tide rising in my alter’d eye. | |
| |
| I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, | |
| By the old Hall which may be mine no more. | |
| Leman’s is fair; but think not I forsake | 75 |
| The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore; | |
| Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, | |
| Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; | |
| Though, like all things which I have loved, they are | |
| Resign’d for ever, or divided far. | 80 |
| |
| The world is all before me; I but ask | |
| Of Nature that with which she will comply— | |
| It is but in her summer’s sun to bask, | |
| To mingle with the quiet of her sky, | |
| To see her gentle face without a mask, | 85 |
| And never gaze on it with apathy. | |
| She was my early friend, and now shall be | |
| My sister—till I look again on thee. | |
| |
| I can reduce all feeling but this one; | |
| And that I would not;—for at length I see | 90 |
| Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. | |
| The earliest—even the only paths for me— | |
| Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, | |
| I had been better than I now can be; | |
| The passions which have torn me would have slept; | 95 |
| I had not suffer’d and thou hadst not wept. | |
| |
| With false Ambition what had I to do? | |
| Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; | |
| And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, | |
| And made me all which they can make—a name. | 100 |
| Yet this was not the end I did pursue; | |
| Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. | |
| But all is over—I am one the more | |
| To baffled millions which have gone before. | |
| |
| And for the future, this world’s future may | 105 |
| From me demand but little of my care; | |
| I have outlived myself by many a day; | |
| Having survived so many things that were; | |
| My years have been no slumber, but the prey | |
| Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share | 110 |
| Of life which might have fill’d a century, | |
| Before its fourth in time had pass’d me by. | |
| |
| And for the remnant which may be to come | |
| I am content; and for the past I feel | |
| Not thankless,—for within the crowded sum | 115 |
| Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, | |
| And for the present, I would not benumb | |
| My feelings farther—Nor shall I conceal | |
| That with all this I still can look around, | |
| And worship Nature with a thought profound. | 120 |
| |
| For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart | |
| I know myself secure, as thou in mine. | |
| We were and are—I am, even as thou art— | |
| Beings who ne’er each other can resign: | |
| It is the same, together or apart, | 125 |
| From life’s commencement to its slow decline | |
| We are entwined—let death come slow or fast, | |
| The tie which bound the first endures the last! | |
| |
