THE gentle heart, the truthful love,
Have flemed this earth and fled to Heaven
The noblest spirits earliest prove
Not Here below, but There above,
Is Hope no shadow-Bliss no sweven !
There was a time, old Poets say,
When the crazed world was in its nonage, That they who loved were loved alwaye, With faith transparent as the day,
But this, meseems, was fiction's coinage.
We cannot mate here as we ought,
With laws opposed to simple feeling; Professions are, like lute string, bought, And worldly ties soon breed distraught, To end in cold congealing!
Forms we have worshipped oft become,
If haply they affect our passion,
Though faultless, icy cold and dumb,
Because we are not rich, like some,
Or proud-Such is this strange world's fashion!
Rapt Fancy lends to unchaste eyes
Ideal beauty, and on faces
Where red rose blent with lily tries
For mastery, in wanton wise,
Bestows enchanting graces :
Yet, as we gaze, the charms decay
That promised long with these to linger; Of love's delight we're forced to say,
It melts like dreamer's wealth away,
Which cheers the eye but mocks the finger!
And, therefore, move I calmly by
The siren bosom softly heaving,
And mark, untouched, the tempter's sigh,
Or make response with tranquil eye-
“Kind damsel, I am past deceiving!"
Long sued I as a man should do,
With cheek high flushed by deep emotion
My lady's love had no such hue,
Hard selfishness would still break through
The glowing mask of her devotion !
No land had I-but I had health
No store was mine of costly raiment— My lady glided off by stealth
To wed a lozel for his wealth
And this was Loyalty's repayment !
The language of the trusting heart,
The soothfast fondness firm, but tender
Are now to most a studied part,
A tongue assumed, a trick of art,
Whereof no meaning can I render.
And hence I say that loyal love
Hath flemed the Earth and fled to Heaven;
And that not here, but there above,
Souls may love rightfully, and prove
Hope is no shadow-Bliss no sweven!
Lucina shyning in silence of the nicht;
The hevin being all full of starris bricht;
To bed I went, bot there I tuke no rest,
With hevy thocht I was so sair oppressed,
That sair I langit after dayis licht.
Of fortoun I complainit hevely,
That echo to me stude so contrarously;
And at the last, quhen I had turnyt oft
For werines, on me ane slummer soft
Came, with ane dreming and a fantesy.
I HAD a vision in the depth of night—
A dream of glory--one long thrill of gladness-
A thing of strangest meaning and delight;
And yet upon my heart there came such sadness,
And dim forebodings of my after years,
That I awoke in sorrow and in tears!
There stood revealed before me a bright maid,
Clad in a white silk tunic, which displayed
The beautiful proportions of her frame ;
And she did call upon me by my name—
And I did marvel at her voice, and shook
With terror, but right soon the smiling look
Of gentleness, that radiant maiden threw
From her large sparkling eyes of deepest blue,
Did reassure me. Breathless, I did gaze
Upon that lovely one, in fond amaze,
And marked her long white hair as it did flow,
With wanton dalliance, o'er the pillared snow
Of her swan-like neck ;-and then my eye grew dim
With an exceeding lustre, for the slim
And gauze-wove raiment of her bosom fair,
Was somewhat ruffled by the midnight air;
And as it gently heaved, there sprung to view
Such glories underneath—such sisters two
Of rival loveliness! Oh, 'twere most vain
For fond conceit to fancy such again.
The robe she wore was broidered fetouslye
With flower and leaf of richest imagerye ;
And threads of gold therein were entertwined
With quaintest needlecraft; and to my mind
It seemed, the waist of this most lovely one,
Was clipped within a broad and azure zone,
Studded with strange devices-One small hand
Waved gracefully a slender ivory wand,
And with the other, ever and anon,
She shook a harp, which, as the winds sighed past,
Gave a right pleasant and bewitching tone
To each wild vagrant blast.
After this wondrous guise, that maiden sweet
Stood visible before me, while the beams
Of Dian pale, laughed round her little feet
With icy lustre, through the narrow pane;
And this discourse she held in merry vein;
Although methought 'twas counterfeited, and
The matter strange, that none might understand.
She told me, that the moon was in her wane—
And life was tiding on, and that the world
Was waxen old—that nature grew unkind,
And men grew selfish quite, and sore bechurled—
That Honour was a bubble of the mind-
And Virtue was a nothing undefined—
And as for Woman, She, indeed, could claim
A title all her own-She had a name
And place in Time's long chronicles, DECEIT—
And Glory was a phantom-Death a cheat !
She said I might remember her, for she
Had trifled with me in mine infancy;
And in those days, that now are long agone,
Has tended me, as if I were her own
And only offspring. When a very child,
She said, her soothing whispers oft beguiled
The achings of my heart—that in my youth,
She, too, had given me dreams of Honour, Truth,
Of Glory and of Greatness-and of Fame-
And the bright vision of a deathless name !
And she had turned my eye, with upward look,
To read the bravely star-enamelled book
Of the blue skies-and in the rolling spheres
To con strange lessons, penned in characters
Of most mysterious import—she had made
Life's thorny path to be all sown with flowers
Of diverse form and fragrance, of each shade
Of loveliness that glitters in the bowers
Of princely damoisels,—Nay, more, her hand
Had plucked the bright flowers of another land,
Belike of Faerye, and had woven them
Like to a chaplet, or gay diadem,
For me to wear in triumph-But that she
Had fostered me so long, she feared, I'd spoil
With very tenderness, nor ever be
Fit for this world's coarse drudgery and moil;
Did she not even now take leave of me,
And her protecting, loving arms uncoil
For ever and for ever,-and though late,
Now leave me to self-guidance, and to fate.
Then passed that glorious spirit, and the smile
She whilome wore fled from her beauteous cheek;
And paleness, and a troubled grief the while
Subdued her voice.-Methought I strove to speak
Some words of tender sympathy, and caught
Her small white trembling hand, but, she, distraught,
Turned her fair form away, and nearer drew
To where the clustering ivy leaves thick grew,
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