Pain and Despair

Affliction (IV)

Broken in pieces all asunder,
Lord, hunt me not,
A thing forgot,
Once a poor creature, now a wonder,
A wonder tortur'd in the space
Betwixt this world and that of grace.


My thoughts are all a case of knives,
Wounding my heart
With scatter'd smart,
As wat'ring pots give flowers their lives.
Nothing their fury can control,
While they do wound and prick my soul.


All my attendants are at strife,
Quitting their place
Unto my face:
Nothing performs the task of life:
The elements are let loose to fight,
And while I live, try out their right.


Oh help, my God! let not their plot
Kill them and me,
And also thee,
Who art my life: dissolve the knot,
As the sun scatters by his light
All the rebellions of the night.


Then shall those powers, which work for grief,
Enter thy pay,
And day by day
Labour thy praise, and my relief;
With care and courage building me,
Till I reach heav'n, and much more, thee.

Artillery


As I one ev'ning sat before my cell,
Me thoughts a star did shoot into my lap.
I rose, and shook my clothes, as knowing well,
That from small fires comes oft no small mishap.
When suddenly I heard one say,
-Do as thou usest, disobey,
Expell good motions from thy breast,
Which have the face of fire, but end in rest-.


I, who had heard of music in the spheres,
But not of speech in stars, began to muse:
But turning to my God, whose ministers
The stars and all things are; if I refuse,
Dread Lord, said I , so oft my good;
Then I refuse not ev'n with blood
To wash away my stubborn thought:
For I will do, or suffer what I ought.


But I have also stars and shooters too,
Born where thy servants both artilleries use.
My tears and prayers night and day do woo,
And work up to thee; yet thou dost refuse.
Not but that I am (I must say still)
Much more oblig'd to do thy will,
Than thou to grant mine: but because
Thy promise now hath ev'n set thee thy laws.


Then we are shooters both, and thou dost deign
To enter combat with us, and contest
With thine own clay. But I would parley fain:
Shun not my arrows, and behold my breast.
Yet if thou shunnest, I am thine:
I must be so, if I am mine.
There is no articling with thee:
I am but finite, yet thine infinitely.

Affliction (II)

Kill me not ev'ry day,
Thou Lord of life, since thy one death for me
Is more than all my deaths can be,
Though I in broken pay
Die over each hour of Methusalem's stay.


If all men's tears were let
Into one common sewer, sea, and brine;
What were they all, compar'd to thine?
Wherein if they were set,
They would discolour thy most bloody sweat.


Thou art my grief alone,
Thou Lord conceal it not: and as thou art
All my delight, so all my smart:
Thy cross took up in one,
By way of imprest, all my future moan.

A Dialogue

Man. SWEETEST Saviour, if my soul
Were but worth the having,
Quickly should I then control

Any thought of waving.
But when all my care and pains
Cannot give the name of gains
To Thy wretch so full of stains,
What delight or hope remains?

Saviour. What, child, is the balance thine,
Thine the poise and measure?
If I say, 'Thou shalt be Mine,'

Finger not My treasure.
What the gains in having thee
Do amount to, only He
Who for man was sold can see;
That transferr'd th' accounts to Me.

Man. But as I can see no merit
Leading to this favour,
So the way to fit me for it

Is beyond my savour.
As the reason, then, is Thine,
So the way is none of mine;
I disclaim the whole design;
Sin disclaims and I resign.

Saviour. That is all: if that I could
Get without repining;
And My clay, My creature, would

Follow My resigning;
That as I did freely part
With My glory and desert,
Left all joys to feel all smart----

Man. Ah, no more! Thou break'st my heart!

Translation Of The Romaic Song

I enter thy garden of roses,
Beloved and fair Haidée,
Each morning where Flora reposes,
For surely I see her in thee.
Oh, Lovely! thus low I implore thee,
Receive this fond truth from my tongue,
Which utters its song to adore thee,
Yet trembles for what it has sung;
As the branch, at the bidding of Nature,
Adds fragrance and fruit to the tree,
Through her eyes, through her every feature,
Shines the soul of the young Haidée.


But the loveliest garden grows hateful
When Love has abandon'd the bowers;
Bring me hemlock since
mine is ungrateful,
That herb is more fragrant than flowers.
The poison, when pour 'd from the chalice,
Will deeply embitter the bowl;
But when drunk to escape from thy malice,
The draught shall be sweet to my soul.
Too cruel! in vain I implore thee
My heart from these horrors to save:
Will nought to my bosom restore thee?
Then open the gates of the grave.


As the chief who to combat advances
Secure of his conquest before,
Thus thou, with those eyes for thy lances,
Halt pierced through my heart to its core.
Ah, tell me, my soul! must I perish
By pangs which a smile would dispel?
Would the hope, which thou once bad'st me cherish,
For torture repay me too well?
Now sad is the garden of roses,
Beloved but false Haidée!
There Flora all wither'd reposes,
And mourns o'er thing absence with me.

Translation Of A Romaic Love Song

Ah! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.


Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows well I knew;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.


Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.


A bird of free and careless wing
Was I through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.


Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.


In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline'
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.


My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?


Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm to bid thy lover live.


My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults while
mine is breaking.


Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.


My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?



Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of woe.

To The Countess Of Blessington

You have ask'd for a verse:the
request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.


Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.


I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.


My life is not dated by yearsThere
are moments which act as plough;
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.


Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.

To M. S. G.

Whene'er I view those lips of thine,
Their hue invites my fervent kiss;
Yet, I forego that bliss divine,
Alas! it wereunhallow'd
bliss.

Whene'er I dream of that pure breast,
How could I dwell upon its snows!
Yet, is the daring wish represt,
For that,would
banish its repose.

A glance from thy soulsearching
eye
Can raise with hope, depress with fear;
Yet, I conceal my love,and
why?
I would not force a painful tear.

I ne'er have told my love, yet thou
Hast seen my ardent flame too well;
And shall I plead my passion now,
To make thy bosom's heaven a hell?

No! for thou never canst be mine,
United by the priest's decree:
By any ties but those divine,
Mine, my belov'd, thou ne'er shalt be.

Then let the secret fire consume,
Let it consume, thou shalt not know:
With joy I court a certain doom,
Rather than spread its guilty glow.

I will not ease my tortur'd heart,
By driving doveey'd
peace from thine;
Rather than such a sting impart,
Each thought presumptuous I resign.

Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave
More than I here shall dare to tell;
Thy innocence and mine to save,I
bid thee now a last farewell.

Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair
And hope no more thy soft embrace;
Which to obtain, my soul would dare,
All, all reproach, but thy disgrace.

At least from guilt shalt thou be free,
No matron shall thy shame reprove;
Though cureless pangs may prey on me,
No martyr shalt thou be to love.

The Spell Is Broke, The Charm Is Flown!

The spell is broke; the charm is flown!
Thus is it with life's fitful fever:
We madly smile when we should groan:
Delirium is our best deceiver.


Each lucid interval of thought
Recalls the woes of Nature's charter;
And he that acts as wise men ought,
But lives, as saints have died, a martyr.

Stanzas For Music: There's Not A Joy The World Can Give

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.


Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.


Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.


Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
'Tis but as ivyleaves
around the ruined turret wreath—
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.


Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

Prometheus


Titan! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,

Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,


The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh


Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;


And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refus'd thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift Eternity
Was thineand
thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.


Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,


And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse


Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;



His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itselfand
equal to all woes,


And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.

On A Cornelian Heart Which Was Broken

Illfated
Heart! And can it be,
That thou should'st thus be rent in vain?
Have years of care for thine and thee
Alike been all employ'd in vain?


Yet precious seems each shatter'd part
And every fragment dearer grown
Since he who wears thee feels thou art
A fitter emblem of his own.


March 16, 1812

On A Nun

Of two fair virgins, modest, though admired,
Heaven made us happy; and now, wretched sires,
Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires,
And gazing upon either, both required.
Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired
Becomes extinguish'd, soon too
soon expires:
But thine, within the closing grate retired,
Eternal captive, to her God aspires.
But thou at least from out the jealous door,
Which shuts between your never meeting
eyes,
May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more:
I to the marble, where my daughter lies,
Rush, the
swoln flood of bitterness I pour,
And knock, and knock, and knock but none replies.

My Soul is Dark

My soul is dark Oh!
quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.


But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence, long;
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst,
And break at once or
yield to song.

Monody On The Death Of The Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan

When the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While Nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm, so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep,
A holy concord, and a bright regret,
A glorious sympathy with suns that set?
'Tis not harsh sorrow, but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness, but full and clear,
A sweet dejection, a transparent tear,
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame, and secret without pain.


Even as the tenderness that hour instils
When Summer's day declines along the hills.
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes
When all of Genius which can perish dies.
A mighty Spirit is eclipsed a
Power
Hath pass'd from day to darkness to
whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeath'd no
name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame!
The flash of Wit, the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song, the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their Sun, but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind;
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul,
Which all embraced, and lighten'd over all,
To cheer, to pierce, to please, or to appal.
From the charm'd council to the festive board,
Of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied,
The praised, the proud, who made his praise their pride.
When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man,
His was the thunder, his the avenging rod,
The wrath the
delegated voice of God!
Which shook the nations through his lips, and blazed
Till vanquish 'd senates trembled as they praised.


And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm,
The gay creations of is spirit charm,
The matchless dialogue, the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit;



The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring
Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring;
These wondrous beings of his fancy, wrought
To fulness by the fiat of his thought,
Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat;
A halo of the light of other days,
Which still the splendour of its orb betrays.


But should there be to whom the fatal blight
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,
Still let them pause ah!
little do they know
That what to them seem'd Vice might be but Woo.
Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise;
Repose denies her requiem to his name,
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel, accuser, judge, and spy,
The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave,
Watch every fault that daring Genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the troth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the pyramid of Calumny!
These are his portion but
if join'd to these
Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease,
If the high Spirit must forget to soar,
And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,
To soothe Indignity and
face to face
Meet sordid Rage, and wrestle with Disgrace,
To find in Hope but the renew'd caress,
The serpentfold
of further Faithlessness:If
such may be the ills which men assail,
What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?
Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given
Bear hearts electriccharged
with fire from Heaven,
Black with the rude collision inly torn,
By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds
borne,
Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst
Thoughts which have turn'd to thunderscorch, and burst.


But far from us and from our mimic scene
Such things should be if
such have ever been
Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task,
To give the tribute Glory need not ask,
To mourn the vanish'd beam, and add our mite
Of praise in payment of a long delight.



Ye Orators! whom yet our councils yield,
Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three!
Whose words were sparks of Immortality!
Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's muse is dear,
He was your Masteremulate
him her!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence!
He was your brother bear
his ashes hence!
While Powers of mind almost of boundless range,
Complete in kind, as various in their change,
While Eloquence, Wit, Poesy, and Mirth,
That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth,
Survive within our souls while
lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud preeminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness, long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die in
moulding Sheridan!

Lines To A Lady Weeping

Weep, daughter of a royal line,
A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay;
Ah! happy if each tear of thine
Could wash a father's fault away!


Weepfor
thy tears are Virtue's tearsAuspicious
to these suffering isles;
And be each drop in future years
Repaid thee by thy people's smiles!

Lines On Hearing That Lady Byron Was Ill

And thou wert sad yet
I was not with thee;
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
Methought that joy and health alone could be
Where I was not and
pain and sorrow here!
And is it thus?it
is as I foretold,
And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
Upon itself, and the wreck'd heart lies cold,
While heaviness collects the shatter'd spoils.
It is not in the storm nor in the strife
We feel benumb'd, and wish to be no more,
But in the after silence
on the shore.
When all is lost, except a little life.
I am too well avenged! but
'twas my right ;
Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent
To be the Nemesis who should requite Nor
did Heaven choose so near an instrument.
Mercy is for the merciful! thou
Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now.
Thy nights are banish'd from the realms of sleep! Yes!
they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel
A hollow agony which will not heal,
For thou art pillow'd on a curse too deep;
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap
The bitter harvest in a woe as real!
I have had many foes, but none like thee;
For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend,
And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
But thou in safe implacability
Hadst nought to dread in
thy own weakness shielded,
And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,
And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare;
And thus upon the world trust
in thy truth,
And the wild fame of my ungovern'd youth On
things that were not, and on things that are Even
upon such a basis hast thou built
A monument, whose cement hath been guilt!
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
And hew'd down, with an unsuspected sword,
Fame, peace, and hope and
all the better life,
Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
Might still have risen from out the grave of strife,
And found a nobler duty than to part.
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,
Trafficking with them in a purpose cold,
For present anger, and for future gold And
buying others' grief at any price.
And thus once enter 'd into crooked ways,
The earthly truth, which was thy proper praise,
Did not still walk beside thee but
at times,
And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
Deceit, averments incompatible,
Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell
In Janusspirits
the
significant eye



Which learns to lie with silence the
pretext
Of prudence, with advantages annex'd The
acquiescence in all things which tend,
No matter how, to the desired end
All found a place in thy philosophy.
The means were worthy, and the end is won
I would not do by thee as thou hast done!


September 1816.

Imitation Of Tibullus

'Sulpicia ad Cerinthum.'Lib.
iv.

Cruel Cerinthus! does the fell disease
Which racks my breast your fickle bosom please?
Alas! I wish'd but to o'ercome the pain,
That I might live for love and you again;
But now I scarcely shall bewail my fate:
By death alone I can avoid your hate

Herod's Lament For Mariamne

Oh, Mariamne! now for thee
The heart of which thou bled'st is bleeding;
Revenge is lost in agony,
And wild remorse to rage succeeding.
Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?
Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:
Ah! could'st thouthou
would'st pardon now,
Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.


And is she dead?and
did they dare
Obey my frenzy's jealous raving?
My wrath but doom'd my own despair:
The sword that smote her's o'er me waving.But
thou art cold, my murder'd love!
And this dark heart is vainly craving
For her who soars alone above,
And leaves my soul unworthy saving.


She's gone, who shared my diadem;
She sunk, with her my joys entombing;
I swept that flower from Judah's stem,
Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,
This bosom's desolation dooming;
And I have earn'd those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming!

From The Last Hill That Looks On Thy Once Holy Dome

I.
From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome,
I beheld thee, Oh Sion! when rendered to Rome:
'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.
II.
I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the deathfire
that fed on thy fane,
And the fastfetter'd
hands that made vengeance in vain.
III.
Oh many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.
IV.
And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I marked not the twilight beam melting away;
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!
V.
But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane
The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign;
And scattered and scorn'd as thy people may be,
Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee.

From Anacreon: 'Twas Now The Hour When Night Had Driven

'Twas now the hour when Night had driven
Her car half round yon sable heaven;
Boötes, only, seem'd to roll
His arctic charge around the pole;
While mortals, lost in gentle sleep,
Forgot to smile, or ceased to weep:
At this lone hour the Paphian boy,
Descending from the realms of joy,
Quick to my gate directs his course,
And knocks with all his little force.
My visions fled, alarm'd I rose,'
What stranger breaks my blest repose?'
'Alas!' replies the wily child,
In faltering accents sweetly mild,
'A hapless infant here I roam,
Far from my dear maternal home.
Oh! shield me from the wintry blast!
The nightly storm is pouring fast.
No prowling robber lingers here.
A wandering baby who can fear?'
I heard his seeming artless tale,
I heard his sighs upon the gale:
My breast was never pity's foe,
But felt for all the baby's woe.
I drew the bar, and by the light
Young Love, the infant, met my sight;
His bow across his shoulders flung,
And thence his fatal quiver hung
(Ah! little did I think the dart
Would rankle soon within my heart).
With care I tend my weary guest,
His little fingers chill my breast;
His glossy curls, his azure wing,
Which droop with nightly showers, I wring;
His shivering limbs the embers warm;
And now reviving from the storm,
Scarce had he felt his wonted glow,
Than swift he seized his slender bow:'
I fain would know, my gentle host,'
He cried, 'if this its strength has lost;
I fear, relax'd with midnight dews,
The strings their former aid refuse.'
With poison tipt, his arrow flies,
Deep in my tortured heart it lies:
Then loud the joyous urchin laugh'd:'
My bow can still impel the shaft:
'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it;
Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?'

Fare Thee Well

Fare thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.


Would that breast were bared before thee
Where thy head so oft hath lain.
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again;


Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show!
Then thou wouldst at last discover
'Twas not well to spurn it so.


Though the world for this commend theeThough
it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe:


Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?


Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:


Still thine own its life retaineth,
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;
And the undying thought which paineth
Is that
we no more may meet.


These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.


And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say 'Father!'
Though his care she must forego?


When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had bless'd!


Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may'st see,



Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.


All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.


Every feeling hath been shaken;
Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to theeby
thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now:


But 'tis doneall
words are idleWords
from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.


Fare thee well! thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie
Sear 'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.

Damætas


In law an infant, and in years a boy,
In mind a slave to every vicious joy;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd;
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;
Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;
Women his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;
Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,
And found the goal when others just begin:
Even still conflicting passions shake his soul,
And bid him drain the dregs of pleasure's bowl;
But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain,
And what was once his bliss appears his bane.

And Wilt Thou Weep When I Am Low?

And wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not soI
would not give that bosom pain.


My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,
My blood runs coldly through my breast;
And when I perish, thou alone
Wilt sigh above my place of rest.


And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace
Doth through my cloud of anguish shine:
And for a while my sorrows cease,
To know thy heart hath felt for mine.


Oh lady! blessd be that tearIt
falls for one who cannot weep;
Such precious drops are doubly dear
To those whose eyes no tear may steep.


Sweet lady! once my heart was warm
With every feeling soft as thine;
But Beauty's self hath ceased to charm
A wretch created to repine.


Yet wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not soI
would not give that bosom pain.