I look'd-I hung on Thee With fearless eyes, and fearless answer'd me. One dreary dream, one dim phantasmal wrong, Far from thy blessed face. "'Twas but a dream, I know, A magic madness that enthrall'd me so: Doom'd to a lurid waste and void of love, With faint feet and despair. 'A phantom life: a curse That blanch'd the greenery of God's universe *- And shared the feast, and ran the common round, And work'd my work, and mask'd the deep-sore wound, Beguiling and beguiled. 'Weep not, mine only Love, My truest of the true, my faithful Dove! And God that gave has heal'd the smart. True Heart, and purer than these azure skies, Ah! we are waking now. I 'But O for it was sore, A death in life, to think thee mine no more- All life without thee purposeless. Prayer link'd in vain to prayer, and heavenward cries That back in thunders roll And very God was blotted from the skies Before the blinded eyes And atheism of the soul. 'And ever as I strove Came doubts and waverings in the Faith of Love: And dreams of ancient Paradise. And that Loved most when Lost-the chaliced gall God spare thy true heart, whatsoe'er befall Affection wasted. 'Weep not, mine only Love, My truest of the true, my faithful Dove : Where star-eyed lilies amorous cadence sway Within their crystal day And emeraldine glow. 'Where through tall coral glades Weird forms of life hang o'er their flickering shades, Well the deep lustrous thoughts, that as they smite And feed the breath of men. 'Where other sapphires lie Than earth's pale gems, each a condenséd sky: Blush opalescent hues, a roseate shame, Self-ranged beneath the tide. 'So blush not Thou; for Truth Owns thee her own from thy first tenderest youth :- Plucking the rose-enfoliaged almond bough, And felt thy careless ringlets on my brow, Before the destined Bride: -Alone alone with Thee, Thee only, as then, and on this crystal sea: The promise of th' illimitable years, Wiped off have ransom'd me. For that great joy to be Seated by thy side and thine arm around me'Twas but the prelibation of the bliss Reserved for such an hour as this: Here let Time stay: God has no joys in store -I wake-morn's scornful sunbeams blanch the floor: Bearing the curse alone. XXXVI It was so next morning. I went forth; I exhausted the last, hope I cannot say, fond foolish fancy, the last event of life, and that how shadowy !-by the second ascent of La Collina. I rested again on the summit; again looked on the white cottage, on the curving road to the Tesoretto. What fatal Power is it which carries us to the violation of spots so sacred to recollection, which raises a mirage vision to our fancy before arrival, and then in place of the desire of the eyes, in place of some sign of wrath adequate to account for calamity, shows us all things pursuing their common way, and Nature and Circumstance implacable or indifferent to our heart's despair? I saw the dry blanched road, the tracks of other wheels, the great trees that had witnessed our parting, the village mother leading up the child born long after. Others passed presently, dressed for some festival in the city below: One walk'd between his wife and child, The prudent partner of his blood And in their double love secure, These three made unity so sweet, Although in all details not repeated in Italy, this charming picture, and the purpose which it serves in the poet's argument came into my mind, but with a double portion of almost wrathful bitterness-Look what thy 'future might have been', the Voice within me said :— 'Look; and she with herself has exiled thee from it for ever, for the ages of ages. After the eighteen years gone by, as well hope to be literally born again, as 'hope afresh. Too late, too late to seek a newer 'world. The irregressible gate is passed: lasciate ogni speranza-And there was no second softer voice to reply O it might suit the song to silence by that argument the complainings of a morbid melancholy, but could the ruined hope of life be restored by this or any other prospect of another's unattainable happiness? : XXXVII I sat down my early years were with me: the tale of hours, visionary now and vain, yet devoted to a desire and a purpose which had been the most real of life's realities, the blessing without which it were truly better not to be. These years, I could not disguise it, had brought a lesson so profoundly sad, at war so absolutely with the teaching both of the world without and the world within the heart, that I hardly knew how to face conclusions which yet appeared irrefutable. If, whilst yet a boy, some friend of larger experience and versed in the defeats of hope, passing by me in my dreams and exultation had recalled the Preacher's pathetic phrase, and said Childhood and Youth, and Love with them, ' are Vanity', I should have derided the warning. Was it on my own merit that I relied? Did I not confess my want of worthihood? O yes, and with remorse deep and continual: but there was truly no thought of self, my reliance was not there; I loved her with such strength and identification, that of her love I could doubt no more than of my own. Let the life-weary king say what he would, mine, (I should have answered the scorner) was a |