DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE.
THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE.
UNCHANGED within to see all changed without
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may'st-shine on! nor
heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite :
And though thou notest from thy safe recess
Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.
THOUGH veiled in spires of myrtle wreath,
Love is a sword that cuts its sheath,
And thro' the clefts itself has made
We spy the flashes of the blade!
But thro' the clefts itself has made
We likewise see Love's flashing blade,
By rust consumed or snapt in twain ;
And only Hilt and Stump remain.
A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed,
And such a feeding calm its presence shed,
A tender love so pure from earthly leaven,
That I unnethe the fancy might control,
'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven,
Wooing its gentle way into my soul!
But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and
Alas! that change how fain would I forget!
That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!
That weary, wandering, disavowing look!
"Twas all another, feature, look, and frame,
And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!
This riddling tale, to what does it belong?
Is't history? vision? or an idle song?
Or rather say at once, within what space
Of time this wild disastrous change took place?
Call it a moment's work, (and such it seems,) This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams; But say, that years matured the silent strife, And 'tis a record from the dream of life.
OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS.
NAY, dearest Anna! why so grave?
I said, you had no soul, 'tis true!
For what you are, you cannot have :
'Tis I, that have one since I first had you!
I HAVE heard of reasons manifold
Why Love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold—
His eyes are in his mind.
What outward form and feature are
He guesseth but in part;
But what within is good and fair
He seeth with the heart.
"THE LOVE THAT MAKETH NOT
ASHAMED.”
WHERE true Love burns Desire is Love's pure flame;
It is the reflex of our earthly frame,
That takes its meaning from the nobler part,
And but translates the language of the heart.
CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT.
SINCE all that beat about in Nature's range,
Or veer or vanish; why shouldst thou remain
The only constant in a world of change,
O yearning thought! that liv'st but in the brain?
Call to the hours, that in the distance play,
The faery people of the future day-
Fond thought! not one of all that shining swarm
Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,
Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,
She is not thou, and only thou art she,
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