I.
Our days of happiness Time hurries by,
As though in haste his envy found relief;
But in our nights of anguish his cold eye
Lingers upon us, gloating o’er our grief,—
Yet in the past we fain would live again,
Forgetting, for the gladness, all the pain.
II.
So pass our years. It seems a little while
Since, with wild throbbings in my boyish heart,
I westward gazed from my own western isle,
And saw the white-winged messengers depart.
Ah! little thought I then that o’er the sea
Lived any one that should be dear to me.
III.
Years fled—and other eyes were westward turned,
And I was on the bosom of the deep,
While strange emotions in my bosom burned—
A sorrow that I thought would never sleep:
For all that I had loved on earth was gone,—
Perhaps forever—and—I was alone;
IV.
Save that I heard the dear familiar noise
Of the old ocean, and can well recall
The bliss, the awe, the love without a voice
With which I felt that great heart rise and fall,
Like some untamed and tameless “thing of life”
That frets for something worthy of its strife.
V.
And then I was alone amid the din
Of ceaseless strugglers after wealth and power,
Content to hide the better soul within,
And pass in men’s applause a gaudy hour,—
To act out well a something they are not,—
To be admired and praised—despised, forgot.
VI.
I was alone, but in my fancy grew
A fair ideal, fashioned from the best
And purest feelings that my spirit knew;
And this ideal was the goddess-guest
In my heart’s temple; but I sought not then
To find my goddess in the haunts of men.
VII.
And yet I found her—all-personified
The goddess of my lonely-loving heart,
And—as an artist, when he stands beside
Some genius-fathered, beauteous child of art,
Worships it mutely, with enraptured gaze—
My love was far too deep for words of praise.
VIII.
But, ah! earth’s brightest joys are bought with pain:
Meeting with parting,—smiles with bitter tears,—
Hope ends in sorrow,—loss succeeds to gain,—
And youth’s gay spring-time leads to wintry years;
Nought lives that dies not in the world’s wide range,
And nothing is unchangeable but change.
IX.
My bliss was o’er. I was again alone
Amid the scenes that I had learned to love
For her dear sake; but, ah! the charm was gone
From river-side and mountain-slope and grove—
All, save the memory of happy hours
That lingered like the sweetness of dead flowers.
X.
And as the ground on which a temple stood
Is holy, though the temple stand no more,
So river, mountain, waterfall and wood
Wore something of the sacredness they wore
When her loved presence blessed them, and her face
Made all around her smile with her sweet grace.
XI.
And I am still alone, and years have fled,
And other scenes are ’round me, as I call
The past by Memory’s magic from the dead,
As Endor’s Sibyl brought the Seer to Saul.
(May he not then have thought of that good time
When David’s music lulled his soul from crime?)
XII.
And I, with more of bitterness than bliss,
The summoned years of my past life review,
Till Hope’s red lips with love pale Sorrow’s kiss,
And all things good and beautiful and true,
Start rainbow-like from Sorrow’s falling tears,
Spanning with hues of Heaven all my years.
XIII.
And as I ope the temple of my heart
And seek its inmost and its holiest shrine,
Still there, my love, my darling one, thou art,—
There still I worship thee and call thee mine;
And this sweet anthem all that temple fills—
“Love cannot lose, ’tis loss of love that kills.”
[POSTSCRIPT.]
XIV.
What cry was that which woke me from my dream?
I stand upon my native, island shore,
And hear the startled curlews round me scream
O’er the mute cliffs that make the fierce waves roar;
I watch the “stately ships” go sailing by,
And wonder how my heart has learned to sigh.
XV.
Ah! that was but a dream. A summer’s eve
Breathes all its balmy blessings on my brow;
I feel as though the earth had got reprieve
From its death-sentence. See, the sun sets now—
The blue of heaven grows gently dark above,—
Below, blue eyes are growing dark with love.
XVI.
That, too, was but a dream. What startled me?
The winds are making havoc ’mong the leaves
Of summer-time, and each once happy tree
For its lost darlings rocks itself and grieves.
The night is dark, the sky is thick with clouds—
Kind frost-nymphs make the little leaves their shrouds!