Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

THAT is the hour, beloved of Heaven,
When plighted faith is purely given;
When lovers blending heart with heart,
And, silent, mingling hand with hand,
Before God's sacred altar stand,
No more in life to part;

Then lowly kneel them down to pray,
That youth's devoted fire

Should ever burn with equal sway,
Till love with life expire.

That, when fast gathering storms prevail,
And sorrow dims the tearful eye,
And those we once deemed faithful, fly
Before the changing gale,

Those vows might not be given in vain:
That summer hours of cloudless joy,
That years of sickness, grief, and pain,
Might ne'er that silver link destroy.
And oh! in man's most dreary hour,
Has woman's voice the magic power

That tames the haughty heart, and glads the aching sight,

And gilds with brighter gleam the deep'ning nig} .. LORD PORCHESTER.

SONG.

DECK not with gems that lovely form for me,
They in my eyes can add no charm to thee.
Braid not for me the tresses of thy hair;

I must have loved thee hadst thou not been fair.

How oft, when half in tears, hast thou beguiled The sorrow from my heart, and I have smiled. Oh! formed alike my tears and smiles to share, I must have loved thee hadst thou een fair.

Time on that cheek his withering hand may press,
He may do all but make me love thee less;
The mind defies him, and thy charm lies there,
I must have loved thee hadst thou not been fair.
BAYLEY.

THE PRAYER OF EARTHLY LOVE.
-UNSEEN she prayed,

With all the still, small whispers of the night,
And with the searching glances of the stars,
And with her God alone! She lifted up

Her sad, sweet voice, while trembling o'er her head
The dark leaves thrilled with prayer-the tearful prayer
Of woman's quenchless yet repentant love.

"Father of spirits, hear!

Look on the inmost soul, to thee revealed:
Look on the fountain of the burning tear,
Before thy sight in solitude unsealed!
"Hear, Father! hear and aid!

If I have loved too well, if I have shed,
In my vain fondness, o'er a mortal head,
Gifts, on thy shrine, my God, more fitly laid;
"If I have sought to live

But in one light, and made a mortal eye
The lonely star of my idolatry,

Thou, that art Love, oh! pity and forgive!
"Chastened and schooled at last,

No more my struggling spirit burns,

But fixed on thee, from that vain worship turns! What have I said? the deep dream is not past.

"Yet hear! If still I love,

Oh! still too fondly-if, for ever seen,

An earthly image comes my soul between, And thy calm glory, Father, throned above; "If still a voice is near,

(Even while I strive these wanderings to control) An earthly voice, disquieting my soul,

With its deep music, too intensely dear;

"O, Father, draw to thee

My lost affections back!—the dreaming eyes Clear from the mist-sustain the heart that dies; Give the worn soul once more its pinions free!

[blocks in formation]

In joyous youth what soul hath never known
Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to his own?
Who hath not paused while Beauty's pensive eye
Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh?
Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed,
The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead?
No; the wild bliss of Nature needs alloy,
And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy!
And say, without our hopes, without our fears,
Without the home that plighted love endears,

Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh! what were man ?—a world without a sun!
Till Hymen brought his love-delighted hour,
There dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower!
In vain the viewless seraph lingering there,
At starry midnight charmed the silent air;
In vain the wild-bird carolled on the steep,
To hail the sun, slow wheeling from the deep;
In vain, to sooth the solitary shade,

Aerial notes in mingling pleasure played;
The summer wind that shook the spangled tree,
The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee;—
Still slowly passed the melancholy day,
And still the stranger wist not where to stray;-
The world was sad!-the garden was a wild!
And Man, the hermit, sighed till Woman smiled!

CAMPBELL.

O Love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immuréd in the brain;
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power.
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious feeling to the eye;---
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind:
A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopt.---
For valor, is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as Shpinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair:
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were tempered with Love's sighs:
O! then his lines would ravage savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world;
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent.

THE CONFESSION.

SHAKSPERF.

THERE is a language by the virgin made,
Not read but felt, not uttered but betrayed,
A mute communion, yet so wondrous sweet,
Eyes must impart what tongue can ne'er repeat.
"Tis written on her cheeks and meaning brows;
In one short glance whole volumes it avows;
In one short moment tells of many days,
In one short speaking silence all conveys.
Joy, sorrow, love, recounts,-hope, pity, fear,
And looks a sigh, and weeps without a tear.
Oh! 'tis so chaste, so touching, so refined,
So soft, so wistful, so sincere, so kind!
Were eyes melodious, and could music shower
From orient rays new striking on a flower,
Such heavenly music from that glance might rise,
And angels own the music of the skies.

E. S. BARRET.

A ROYAL BRIDE.
Too proud

For less than absolute command, too soft
For aught but gentle tender thought; her hair
Clustered as from an orb of gold, cast out
A dazzling and overpowering radiance, save
Here and there on her white neck reposed,

In a soothed brillianee, some thin wandering tress.
The azure flashing of her eye was fringed
With virgin meekness, and her tread that seemed
Earth to disdain, as softly fell on it

As the light dew shower on a tuft of flowers.

MILMAN.

THE TWO FOUNTAINS.

I SAW, from yonder silent cave,
Two fountains running side by side;
The one was Memory's limpid wave,
The other cold Oblivion's tide.
"Oh! Love," said I, in thoughtless dream,
As o'er my lips the Lethe passed,
Here, in this dark and ehilly stream,
Be all my pains forgot at last."

But who could bear that gloomy blank,
Where joy was lost as well as pain?
Quickly of Memory's fount I drank,

And brought the past all back again,
And said, "Oh! Love, whate'er my lot,
Still let this soul to thee be true:
Rather than have one bliss forgot,
Be all my pains remembered too!"

[blocks in formation]

Thy presence is around me, and I feel
All its o'ermastering influence. A chin-
A viewless chain-binds my stern spirit down
To more than woman's gentleness. A spell,
As 'twere of voiceless music, through my soul
Steals with a soft delight unfelt before.

I strive to break this thraldom, and arouse
The vigor of my mind;-but Love's own breath,
Like the sweet south upon the Eolian lyre,
Sweeps o'er my heartstrings. I'm again subdued,
And all my efforts sink into-a sigh!

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.
OH! the days are gone when Beauty bright
My heart's chain wove;

When my dream of life from morn till night
Was love, still love!
New hope may bloom,
And days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam;

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As Love's young dream.

No! there's nothing half so sweet in life
As Love's young dream!

Though the bard to purer fame may soar,
When wild youth's past;

Though he win the wise, who frowned before,
To smile at last;

[blocks in formation]

SONNET.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds

Or bends with the remover to remove :
Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

[blocks in formation]

OH! woman's love is a holy light,
Which when once kindled can not die;
Though time, and treachery, and slight,

To quench the deathless flame may try.
Like ivy, when it grows 'tis seen
To wear an everlasting green;
Like ivy, too, 'tis found to cling
Too often round a worthless thing.
O woman's love! at times it may

Seem cold and clouded; but it burns With an undeviating ray,

And never from its idol turns. Its sunshine is a smile; a frown

The heavy cloud that weighs it down;

A tear its weapon is-(beware

Of woman's tears, there's danger there):
Its sweetest place on which to rest,
A constant and confiding breast ;-

Its joy to meet;-its death-to part ;Its sepulchre-a broken heart!

HER NAME.

WITH more than Jewish reverence as yet Do I the sacred name conceal;

:

When, ye kind stars, ah! when will it be fit
This gentle mystery to reveal!

When will our love be named, and we possess
That christening as a badge of happiness?
So bold as yet no verse of mine has been,
To wear that gem on any line;
Nor, till the happy nuptial muse be seen,
Shall any stanza with it shine.

Rest, mighty name! till then; for thou must be
Laid down by her, ere taken up by me.

Then all the fields and woods shall with it ring;
Then Echo's burden it shall be;

Then all the birds in several notes shall sing,
And all the rivers murmur,-thee;
Then every wind the sound shall upward bear,
And softly whisper 't to some angel's ear.

THE BRIDE. NAY, 'tis not

Tre grace of her meek, bending, snowy neck The flowing outline of proportioned limbs Moving with health's elastic lightness, blent With all that nameless sauvity of air

COWLEY.

[blocks in formation]

THOU movest in visions, of Love! Around thy way
E'en through this world's rough path and changefil day
For ever floats a gleam,-

Not from the realms of moonlight or the morn,
But thine own soul's illumined chambers born,-
The coloring of a dream!

Love, shall I read thy dream ?-oh! is it not
All of some sheltering wood-embosomed spot-
A bower for thee and thine?

Yes! lone and lowly is that home; yet there
Something of heaven in the transparent air
Makes every flower divine.

Something that mellows and that glorifies
Breathes o'er it ever from the tender skies,
As o'er some blessed isle;

E'en like the soft and spiritual glow
Kindling rich woods whereon the ethereal bow
Sleeps lovingly awhile.

The very whispers of the wind have there
A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear
Greeting from some bright shore,

Where none have said Farewell!-where no decay
Lends the faint crimson to the dying day;
Where the storm's might is o'er,

And there thou dreamest of Elysian rest,
In the deep sanctuary of one true breast

Hidden from earthly ill :

There wouldst thou watch the homeward step whose sound Wakening all Nature to sweet echoes round,

Thine inmost soul can thrill.

There by the hearth should many a glorious page,
From mind to mind the immortal heritage,
For thee its treasures pour;

Or music's voice at vesper hours be heard,
Or dearer interchange of playful word,
Affection's household lore.

And the rich unison of mingled prayer,
The melody of hearts in heavenly air,
Thence duly should arise;
Lifting the eternal hope, the adoring breath,
Of spirits, not to be disjoined by death,

Up to the starry skies.

There dost thou well believe, no storm should come To mar the stillness of that angel home;

There should thy slumbers be

Weighed down with honey-dew, serenely blest,
Like theirs who first in Eden's grove took rest
Vader some balmy tree.

Love! Love! thou passionate in joy and wo!
And canst thou hope for cloudless peace below-
Here, where bright things must die?
Oh! thou, that, wildly worshipping, dost shed
On the frail altar of a mortal head

Gifts of infinity!

Thou must be still a trembler, fearful Love! Danger seems gathering from beneath, above, Still round thy precious things;

Thy stately pine-tree, or thy gracious rose,
In their sweet shade can yield thee no repose,
Here, where the blight hath wings.

And, as a flower with some fine sense imbued,
To shrink before the wind's vicissitude,

So in thy prescient breast

Are lyre-strings quivering with prophetic thrill
To the low footstep of each coming ill;

-Oh! canst thou dream of rest?

Bear up thy dream! thou mighty and thou weak!
Heart strong as death, yet as a reed to break;
As a flame, tempest-swayed!

He that sits calm on high is yet the source
Whence thy soul's current hath its troubled course,
He that great deep hath made!

Will He not pity? He, whose searching eye
Reads all the secrets of thine agony ?-

Oh! pray to be forgiven

Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,

And seek with Him that bower of blessedness :

Love! thy sole home is heaven!

LOVE.

HEMANS.

A MYSTERY thou art, thou mighty one!
We speak thy name in beauty, yet we shun
To own thee, Love, a guest; the poet's songs
Are sweetest when their voice to thee belongs,
And hope, sweet opiate, tenderness, delight,
Are terms which are thy own peculiar right;
Yet all deny their master; who will own
His breast thy footstool, and his heart thy throne?
LANDON.

[ocr errors]

WAKE, oh, wake! the morning star

Hath ceased to grace his glittering car:
Slowly the redd'ning clouds enfold,
And frequent streaks of living gold
Announce the lord of day.

The light breeze wafts perfume on high,
Less sweet alone than thy sweet sigh!
The flower with fresher teints is glowing,
The fount with clearer crystal flowing.
Oh come! oh come!

Hours like this a charm impart,
That wins the eye but not the heart,
While Love is still away!

Wake, oh, wake! through every grove
Is heard the matin round of love;
-And shall a dearer love be vain
To bid thee burst dull slumber's chain,
And spurn at slow delay ?

Though morning glow with teints divine
I'd change her brightest blush for thine,
And deem thine eye from sleep awaking,
Outshone the sun through darkness breaking.
Oh come! oh come!

Hours like this are quickly filed,

But thy fond smile a joy can shed
Which melts not thus away!

Aн, me for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history,

T. DALE.

The course of true love never did run smooth:
But either it was different in blood,
Or else misgrafted in respect of years;
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends:
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it;
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the colled night,
That in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth;
And, ere a man hath power to say, Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion!

LOVE'S LAST EVENING.

Oh! that word was, how sad a word it is!-SHAKSPLEE DOST thou recal it? 'twas a glorious eve! The air was precious with the breath of flowers That had been weeping-and the harps of eve Played vespers to the stars! and in the blue, The deep blue sky, (how beautiful she looked') Stood the young moon!

Thou dost know how many years, How long and well my soul has worshipped thee, Till my mind made itself a solitude For only thee to dwell in-and thou wert The spirit of all fountains in my breast! -We will not speak of that; but oh! that eve Amid the pines, our fondest and our last! (Ere it had crossed my heart, or thine, to think That we could part-and one could change so soon) How it has haunted me, with all the sounds That made it silent-and the starry eyes And flitting shapes that made it solitude' Did I not love thee! oh! but for one throb, One pulse of all the pulses beating then; One feeling-though the feeling were a pang! One passion-though the passion spoke in tears! I deemed thy love was boundless; oh! the queen, The eastern queen, who melted down her pearl, And drank the treasure in a single draught, Was wiser far than hearts that love too well, If love be finite! In that last adieu Our young and ardent spirits burnt away, And flung their ashes on the winds of heaven! Our love has perished like the sound that dies, And leaves no echo-like the eastern day That has no twilight-like the lonely flower Flung forth to wither on the wind, that wastes Even its perfume: dead, thou false one! dead, With all the precious thoughts on which it fed, And all the hopes which made it beautifulSound, light, and perfume, gone--and gone for ever J. K. HERVEY.

Le véritable amour ne peut exister sans l'estime; mais l'estime la plus parfaite ne suffit pas pour l'amour. Cette passion si douce et si violente, source de plaisirs et de peines, de tourmens et de délices, cette flamme qui consume, et fait vivre, ne s'allume jamais qu'une fois. Les ames pares sa vent l'immoler à la vertu, et donner ensuite au devoir tout ce qui dépend encore d'elles: mais cet attrait, ce charme irrésistible, cet élae rapide de toutes les pensées, de tous les sentimens vers un seul objet, ces craintes terribles, ces vives espérances, et ces profondes douleurs pour un regard de colère, et ces ravissemens inexprimables pour un serrement de main, on ne les éprouve plus; ils sont passés avec le premier amour. Le cœur n'en est plus susceptible. C'est le lis coupé sur sa tige; la plante vit encore, mais ne produit plus de fleurs. FLORIAN.

LOVE'S DARING.

Oн, never did achievement "ival Love's,
For daring enterprise and execution!
It will do miracles: attempt such things
As make ambition, fiery as it is,
Dull plodding tameness in comparison.
Talk of the miser's passion for his store-
"Tis milk and water to the lover's, which
Defies the mines of earth and caves of ocean
To match its treasure! Talk of height, breadth, depth,
There is no measure for the lover's passion,
No bounds to what 'twill do!

SHERIDAN KNOWLES

LOVE is a gift which God hath given
To man alone beneath the heaven.
It is the secret sympathy,

The silver link, the silken tie,

Which heart to heart, and mind to mind In hody and in soui can bind.

SHAKSPERE.

[ocr errors]

343

THE FAREWELL.

FAREWELL, fair Rosebud of the isles!
Yet one farewell to thee;
Brief was the blessing of thy smiles
Like all of bliss for me.
Deputed dreams! sent down to bless
The sleep of beauty, tell
With what impassioned tenderness
The minstrel breathes farewell!

Oh! tell her she's my sheltering tree,
My love-star o'er the waves,
The camel's treasured draught to me,
That midst the desert saves.
This neart itself a desert bare
As that my footstep knows;
One only rose left blooming there,
And she that virgin rose.

ISHMAEL FITZADAM.

MERCENARY LOVE DESPISED.

LADY,

Ye who have dwelt upon the sordid land,
Amid the everlasting gloomy war

Of Poverty with Wealth-ye can not know
How we, the wild sons of the ocean, mock
At men who fret out life with care for gold.
Oh! the fierce sickness of the soul-to see
Love bought and sold, and all the heaven-roofed temple
Of God's great globe, the money-change of Mammon !

I dream of love, enduring faith, a heart

Mingled with mine-a deathless heritage
Which I can take unsullied to the stars,

When the Great Father calls his children home;

And in the midst of this Elysian dream,

Lo, Gold-the demon Gold! alas! the creeds
Of the false land!

SIR E. L. BUlwer.

[blocks in formation]

Он! happy they, the happiest of their kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate

Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings brend

'Tis not the coarser ties of human laws,

Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,

That binds their peace, but harmony itself,

Attuning all their passions into love:

Where friendship full exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem, enlivened by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will, With boundless confidence; for naught but love Can answer love, and render bliss secure.

THOMSON.

FLOWERS LOVE'S LANGUAGE.. BEAUTIFUL language! Love's peculiar own, But only to the spring and summer known. Ah! little marvel in such clime and age As that of our too earth-born pilgrimage, That we should daily hear that Love is filed, And Hope grown pale, and lighted feelings dead. Not for the cold, the careless to impart, By such sweet signs, the silence of the heart;

[blocks in formation]

I WILL remember thee,-in that stil' hour
When, like a dream of beauty, fr m the west,
Heaven's sweetest star sheds down her golden dower
Of light upon the waters,-whose unrest
And moodiness might well be charmed away,
By the pure loveliness of that soft ray!

I will remember thee,-when night hath thrown
Its dreams around the sleeper, and repose
Hath calmed the worn and aching spirit down
To brief oblivion of its waking woes;
Then,-when deep silence reigneth over all,
My lonely thoughts thine image shall recal.
I will remember thee,-when morn hath hung
Her banner on the hills,-and kindling gleams
Of sunlight, in warm diamond showers are flung
Upon the surface of the bounding streams,
Which move in their exulting course along,
Free as the murmurs of their own wild song.

I will remember thee,-when summer's sigh
Breathes o'er the mountains, and the laughing earth
Is zoned with roses,-while deep melody

Hath in the woods, with the wild flowers its birth
From joyous birds, who mid their green homes there
Pour forth their music on the clear blue air

I will remember thee,—through many a scene
Of pleasantness and solitude;-for thou
Upon my dark and troubled path hast been
A vision blest and cheering,-as the bow
That spans the thunder-cloud: a thing of light,
As early hope's first dreamings pure and bright.
ELIZA ACTON,

LOVE.

OH! Love hath wings on which we fly,
To breathe in joy's unclouded sky!
And Love hath wings, on which we go
Down to the hopeless depths of wo!
Love is a light in sorrow's night,

It shines with pure and gladdening ray,
And Love is a flame which from heaven came,
A beacon that shines o'er our earthly way,

When kindred hearts in rapture meet,
When e'en their plaintive sighs are sweet,
Then dwells celestial bliss below,

Then flies all thought of care or wo!

Then trip the hours o'er summer flowers;

Then life glides like a gentle stream:

Earth yields no bliss so sweet as this,

Though it sometimes fade like an earthly dream.

The pair inspired by rosy love,

Foretaste the joys of heaven above!

Their hearts are blessed, and what to them

Is glittering pomp or costly gem?

They rapture breathe! on earth beneath

They tread a soft enchanted path.

If o'er the hour the tempest lower,

They reck not the fate of its bursting wrath.

Alas! if Love do not reveal

His warmth to stamp the marriage seal,
Then grief and bitter wo betide

The wedded lord and hapless bride:
Then hope will die, and true Love fly
Far off upon his trembling wing;

The withered breast shall know no rest
From the scorpion care, and his poisoned sting.
J. BIRD.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »