Do not linger with regretting,
Or for passing hours despond;
Nor, the daily toil forgetting,
Look too eagerly beyond.
Hours are golden links, God's token
Reaching Heaven; but one by one
Take them, lest the chain be broken
Ere the pilgrimage be done.
ADELAIDE PROCTOR.
O SORROW!
Why dost borrow
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips? To give maiden blushes
To the white rose bushes? Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?
To give the glow-worm light?
Or, on a moonless night,
To tinge, on Syren shores, the salt sea spray?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow
The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?
To give at evening pale
Unto the nightingale,
That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?
O Sorrow!
Why dost borrow
Heart's lightness from the merriment of May? A lover would not tread
Tho' he should dance from eve till peep of dayNor any drooping flower
Held sacred for thy bower, Wherever he may sport himself and play.
To Sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerily, cheerily,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind;
I would deceive her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.
Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,
I sat aweeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept-
And so I kept
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.
Come then, Sorrow,
Sweetest Sorrow!
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast: I thought to leave thee,
But now of all the world I love thee best!
I WEPT for love; I trembled on the height
Of ecstasy unprobed and colourless
Of passion. Then there swept a golden net,
Star-knotted, lightning-woven, down from God,
And swathed each moment of my life's delight,
Each holiest memory of heavenlier bliss
And passion-thrilling vision and intense,-
Caught all God's kisses in a sheet of fire,—
Of Sunset's living crimson,-from my life,
And bore them into darkness. See how Death
The Stormcloud learns the Sunlight! See how Love
Warms the stern, ice-bound precipice! See Life
Eternal intercepting Feet of Time
Death dying in the love he bears to Life.
O yearning heart, look inward and above;
Thy losses were God's treasures, and thy pain
His robe of glory. Thus He decks Himself
For thine embrace-thy beatific gaze.
And where thou look'st for abject worm and clay,
And life's last failure in the sightless dust,
There in th' illusive grave's dark mystery
Is all thy uttermost, deep, deathless joy
Earth might not touch, but only kiss her hand
In unavailing, tearful rapture. Love,
I feel thee in the Highest-Crystal sea,
And throne of endless glory, and the wing
Of Seraph, and pure Arch-angelic brow,
All blazoned with thy splendour.
Oh! my Home, My Life, my God: beneath the shades, I come.
BETWIXT mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other;
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
A heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thyself away art present still with me ;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet XLVII.
"I see the moon and the moon sees me.
God bless the moon and God bless me."
LADY MOON, Lady Moon, where are you roving?
Over the sea.
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving? "All that love me."
Are you not tired with rolling and never
Resting to sleep?
Why look so pale and so sad, as for ever
Wishing to weep?
"Ask me not this, little child! if you love me,
You are too bold;
I must obey my dear Father above me,
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving? Over the sea.
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving? "All that love me."
POOR Soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend !
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And, Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet CXLVI.
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