That HOPE, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he wouldFor Love's Despair is but Hope's pining Ghost! For this one hope he makes his hourly moan, He wishes and can wish for this alone! Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams (So the love-stricken visionary deems) Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower! Or let it stay! yet this one Hope should give Such strength that he would bless his pains and live. THE HAPPY HUSBAND. A FRAGMENT. OFT, oft methinks, the while with Thee I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear And dedicated name, I hear A promise and a mystery, A pledge of more than passing life, A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep! A feeling that upbraids the heart With happiness beyond desert, That gladness half requests to weep! Nor bless I not the keener sense And unalarming turbulence Of transient joys, that ask no sting From jealous fears, or coy denying; But born beneath Love's brooding wing, And into tenderness soon dying, Wheel out their giddy moment, then A more precipitated vein Of notes, that eddy in the flow Of smoothest song, they come, they go, And leave their sweeter understrain Its own sweet self-a love of Thee That seems, yet cannot greater be! RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE. I. How warm this woodland wild Recess ! LOVE surely hath been breathing here. And this sweet bed of heath, my dear! Swells up, then sinks with faint caress, As if to have you yet more near. II. Eight springs have flown, since last I lay On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills, Where quiet sounds from hidden rills Float here and there, like things astray, And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills. III. No voice as yet had made the air Beloved! flew your spirit by? IV. As when a mother doth explore The rose-mark on her long lost child, V. You stood before me like a thought, A dream remembered in a dream. But when those meek eyes first did seem To tell me, Love within you wroughtO Greta, dear domestic stream! VI. Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep, Has not Love's whisper evermore, Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar? Sole voice, when other voices sleep, Dear under-song in Clamor's hour. |