She told me all her friends had said;
I raged against the public liar;
She talked as if her love were dead,
But in my words were seeds of fire.
"No more of love; your sex is known:
I never will be twice deceived.
Henceforth I trust the man alone,
The woman cannot be believed.
Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell
(And women's slander is the worst),
And you, whom once I loved so well,
Thro' you, my
life will be accurst;
I spoke with heart and heat and force,
I shook her breast with vague alarms,-
Like torrents from a mountain source
We rushed into each other's arms.
We parted: sweetly gleamed the stars,
And sweet the vapour-braided blue,
Low breezes fanned the belfry bars,
As homeward by the church I drew.
The very graves appeared to smile,
So fresh they rose in shadowed swells;
"Dark porch" I said and silent isle
There comes a sound of marriage bells.'
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee is more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love;
But will thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?
A song to lay at the feet of
Something that when the singing is done, And the singer's presence hath past away, May recall the voice of that absent one, And the wasted love of a vanished dayThis would I lay at the feet of my Love.
A rose to lay at the feet of my Love-
To live in her hair for just as long
As my singing may linger about her heart,
But whose petals shall keep, as shall the song,
Their sweetness, when colour and voice depart-
This will I lay at the feet of my Love.
A heart to lay at the feet of my Love!
To leave it there in its simple truth,
Not for a day-not for a day-
Strong to endure, when the heat of youth,
And cold mid-age shall have passed away-
Such heart I lay at the feet of my Love!
Give me your hand, the hours grow old,
Let us float down the tide together, my friend;
Already the sun looks wan and cold,
And we drift to the shadow where all must end.
Give me your hand-let its clasp warm mine,
Mine that is stiffened by labour's trace,
Linked in the dimpled folds of thine,
Let it rest from the toil of its manhood a space.
Look in my eyes, and banish thence
Weariness, trouble and shadows of pain;
Light up the gleams of a love intense,
And charm youth's happiness back again.
Give me your lips, and kiss me, dear!
The pledge is given! the compact made! The love that is perfect shall cast out fear, Together we'll drift towards the shade!
I'd mourn the hopes that leave me,
If thy smiles had left me too;
I'd weep when friends deceive me,
If thou wert, like them, untrue.
But while I've thee before me,
With heart so warm, and eyes so bright, No clouds can linger o'er me,
That smile turns them all to light.
'Tis not in fate to harm me,
While fate leaves thy love to me; "Tis not in joy to charm me,
Unless that joy be shared with thee.
One minute's dream about thee
Were worth a long, an endless year
Of waking bliss without thee,
My only love, my only dear!
And though the hope be gone, love,
That long sparkled o'er our way,
Oh! we shall journey on, love,
More safely, without its ray.
Far better lights shall win me
Along the path I've yet to roam :-
The mind that burns within me,
And pure smiles from thee at home.
Thus when the lamp that lighted
The traveller at first goes out,
He feels awhile benighted,
And looks around in fear and doubt.
But soon, the prospect clearing,
By cloudless starlight on he treads
And thinks no lamp so cheering
As that light which Heaven sheds.
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