WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.
WE did not meet in courtly hall,
Where Birth and Beauty throng,
Where Luxury holds festival,
And Wit awakes the song;
We met where darker spirits meet,
In the home of Sin and Shame,
Where Satan shows his cloven feet,
And hides his titled name;
And she knew she could not be, Love,
What once she might have been,
But she was kind to me, Love,
My pretty Josephine.
We did not part beneath the sky,
As warmer lovers part,
Where Night conceals the glistening eye,
But not the throbbing heart;
e parted on that spot of ground
Where first we laughed at love,
And ever the jests were loud around,
And the lamps were bright above:
"The heaven is very dark, Love,
The blast is very keen,
But merrily rides my bark, Love,
Good night, my Josephine!"
She did not speak of ring or vow,
But filled the cup with wine,
And took the roses from her brow
To make a wreath for mine;
And bade me, when the gale should lift
My light skiff on the wave,
To think as little of the gift,
As of the hand that gave:
"Go gaily o'er the sea, Love,
And find your own heart's queen ;
And look not back to me, Love,
Your humble Josephine!"
That garland breathes and blooms no more,
Past are those idle hours;
I would not, could I choose, restore
The fondness or the flowers;
Yet oft their withered witchery
Revives its wonted thrill,
Remembered, not with Passion's sigh,
But O, remembered still:
And even from your side, Love,
And even from this scene,
One look is o'er the tide, Love,
One thought with Josephine!
Alas! your lips are rosier,
Your eyes of softer blue,
And I have never felt for her,
As I have felt for you;
Our love was like the snow-flakes,
Which melt before you pass,
Or the bubble on the wine, which breaks Before you lip the glass.
You saw these eyelids wet, Love,
Which she has never seen;
But let me not forget, Love,
My poor, poor Josephine!
My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die;
Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,
Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss,
While Time and Peace with hands enlockéd fly;
Yet care I not where in Eternity
We live and love, well knowing that there is
No backward step for those who feel the bliss
Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high:
Love hath so purified my being's core,
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even,
To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;
Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given,
Which each calm day doth strengthen more and more,
That they who love are but one step from Heaven.
I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away,
Whose life to mine is an eternal law,
A piece of nature that can have no flaw,
A new and certain sunrise every day;
But, if thou art to be another ray
About the Sun of Life, and art to live
Free from all of thee that was fugitive,
The debt of love I will more fully pay,
Not downcast with the thought of thee so high,
But rather raised to be a nobler man,
And more divine in my humanity,
As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan
My life are lighted by a purer being,
And ask meek, calm-browed deeds, with it agreeing.
These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear,
Did I not know, that, in the early spring,
When wild March winds upon their errands sing,
Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air,
Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair,
They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks
From icy cares, even as thy clear looks
Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care :
When drops with welcome rain the April day,
My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes,
Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay,
As loath to fall out of those happy skies;
Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May,
That comes with steady sun when April dies.
I thought our love at full, but I did err;
Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not see
That sorrow in our happy world must be
Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter;
But, as a mother feels her child first stir
Under her heart, so felt I instantly
Deep in my soul another bond to thee
Thrill with that life we saw depart from her;
O mother of our angel-child! twice dear!
Death knits as well as parts, and still, I wis,
Her tender radiance shall enfold us here,
Even as the light, borne up by inward bliss,
Threads the void glooms of space without a fear,
To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss.
[“ Bells and Pomegranates." 1845.]
ALL's over, then; does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark! 'tis the sparrow's good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves.
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully,
You know the red turns gray.
To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we; well, friends the merest
Keep much that I'll resign:
For each glance of that eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stays in my soul forever!
Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
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