X. LOVE'S LOFTY FOOD. LOVE's lofty food so lifts my spirit up, Whose holy harmony to Heaven is dear And none can feel who've not its rapture known. I feed my eyes upon her speaking face, Art, genius, beauty, beatific grace. XI. LOVE'S SWEET ANGER. SWEET anger, sweetest wrath, sweet peace, sweet ire, And weep my love's melodious suffering. While others will exclaim, "Oh, blinding woe! Why seal'dst our eyelids? Why did we not claim An earlier birth-or they a later know ?" SONNETS FROM DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. I. THE DISAPPOINTMENT "TIS Saturday, precisely half-past three, My elbow rests upon my study-table, My hand imbeds my cheek. With studious look And, yet, to read a line I am not able, Although the volume is by Thackeray. My tell-tale thoughts through Reason's hands have slipped (I would to Heaven their pinions had been clipped) And, laughing, flown to meet thee on thy way, To whisper how thine absence does unnerve meAnd thy dear presence turn my heart all topsy-turvy. II. MY SOUL'S PHYSICIAN. WHEN I was on the edge of twenty-three, To see me writhe they gave me gall to drink- In mollifying balm of sympathy. Then, dashing from its violet brink the tear III. FANCY'S PICTURE. . INTENT to seek afar some resting-place, That I might gaze for ever on thy face, Envy impannels, with an oath sublime, To twist the acts of innocence to crime, And put the straight-laced public in a fury. To seek that foreign home I did not go, But did elect, upon my native soil, Impatiently in paths of pain to toil For laurels, which through years should greener grow And, now, above the hazy horizon Of my young starless life thou'st risen like a sun. |