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IX.

LOVE'S COLOR.

I CAN nor tell nor sing the bliss of loving,
It is a joy to think of-not to speak,

Words, symbols, lyres, seraphic trumpets are too weak
To utter its divinity-so proving

That silence is its best interpreter.

Love never did gain strength through speech or ear;

If found loquacious, it is plumed for roving,

Or lodged in bosoms little worth its moving.

All things assume the color of my love,

I only see through its prismatic eyes.

It vests the stars in hues of Paradise,

And clothes the moon in soulshine from above

If sun, moon, stars went out-earth were black night,

I could live on and love by Love's celestial light.

X.

LOVE'S LAST SWEET DRAUGHT.

A WEEK ago to-day, the hours embalmed,
Serenely, silently as one that's dead,

Upon thy breast I bowed my throbbing head,
And down my pulses sank like sails becalmed.
My hand was softly folded up in thine,
So softly that I did not feel the pressure,
And so I lay imbibing without measure,

From out the crystal cup of love divine.

Stars dawned. The storm of woe aback was driven, In muffled murmurs like a dying dirge.

I heard the waves of bliss around me surge,

And all the Angels calling me in heaven, When lo the hand of Reason smote the bowl, And dashed it from the lips of my inebriate soul.

XI.

THE CHANGE.

AH! woe is me! how have I fallen from
My height-my heaven of heavens-my Eden fair,
Down to this lower world of grief-despair,

To trail the dust like any other worm !

Where are my wings that erst outsoared the storm, As the bold eagle cleaves the upper air?

Where are the sylphs that twined my flowing hair,
"Trancing me till they spoke their loving warm?
Ah! where the soul, whose pinions under mine,
Did waft me up against the glowing stars,

Or with me float upon their silvery spars
Along the wide empyrean blue.-Supine

I lie, adrift adown the dreary dark,

Where dawns no beacon-star to guide my helmless bark.

XII.

THE RIVER OF THE PAST.

I'm roving up the river of the past,

Where thou and I, Adhémar, hand in hand—

Cheek pressed to cheek, whilom, were wont to stand, Watching the golden moments as they passed;

Or, speechless, gaze into each other's eyes

Until our souls arose in those expanses,

And stood up, face to face, exchanging glances
Of love, then swooned away in ecstasies.
Cupid through us gained immortality—

A passport through the gates of Eden won,
Since, while our flame lent ardor to the sun,
It held within itself a purity

That lifted it above the thought of sin

And the full sanction of both heaven and earth did win.

XIII.

THE PARTING.

'Tis just one year ago, beloved, to-day,

Since, my pale hand between thy hands compressed,

I laid my burning brow upon thy breast,

And bade the flood-gates of my heart give way,
Then shut them down upon its streams for aye.
We sought to speak, yet neither said farewell;
Fate rang her larum through my spirit's cell
Until the chill of death upon me lay.-
I never could re-live that hour again,
Through every artery shot an icy pang,

As if an adder pierced me with its fang,
And dashed the roseate fount of life with bane--

Mine eyes were open, yet I could not see—

I breathed, yet I was dead-all things were dead to me.

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