III. A FAREWELL.
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y horse’s feet beside the lake,Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,Sent echoes through the night to wakeEach glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay. The poplar avenue was passed,And the roofed bridge that spans the stream;Up the steep street I hurried fast,Led by thy taper’s starlike beam. I came! I saw thee rise! the bloodPoured flushing to thy languid cheek.Locked in each other’s arms we stood,In tears, with hearts too full to speak. Days flew; ah, soon I could discernA trouble in thine altered air!Thy hand lay languidly in mine,Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare. I blame thee not! This heart, I know,To be long loved was never framed;For something in its depths doth glowToo strange, too restless, too untamed. And women,--things that live and moveMined by the fever of the soul,--They seek to find in those they loveStern strength, and promise of control. They ask not kindness, gentle ways;These they themselves have tried and known:They ask a soul which never swaysWith the blind gusts that shake their own. I too have felt the load I boreIn a too strong emotion’s sway;I too have wished, no woman more,This starting, feverish heart away. I too have longed for trenchant force,And will like a dividing spear;Have praised the keen, unscrupulous course,Which knows no doubt, which feels no fear. But in the world I learnt, what thereThou too wilt surely one day prove,--That will, that energy, though rare,Are yet far, far less rare than love. Go, then! till time and fate impressThis truth on thee, be mine no more!They will! for thou, I feel, not lessThan I, wast destined to this lore. We school our manners, act our parts;But He, who sees us through and through,Knows that the bent of both our heartsWas to be gentle, tranquil, true. And though we wear out life, alas!Distracted as a homeless wind,In beating where we must not pass,In seeking what we shall not find; Yet we shall one day gain, life past,Clear prospect o’er our being’s whole;Shall see ourselves, and learn at lastOur true affinities of soul. We shall not then deny a courseTo every thought the mass ignore;We shall not then call hardness force,Nor lightness wisdom any more. Then, in the eternal Father’s smile,Our soothed, encouraged souls will dareTo seem as free from pride and guile,As good, as generous, as they are. Then we shall know our friends! Though muchWill have been lost,--the help in strife,The thousand sweet, still joys of suchAs hand in hand face earthly life,-- Though these be lost, there will be yetA sympathy august and pure;Ennobled by a vast regret,And by contrition sealed thrice sure. And we, whose ways were unlike here,May then more neighboring courses ply;May to each other be brought near,And greet across infinity. How sweet, unreached by earthly jars,My sister! to maintain with theeThe hush among the shining stars,The calm upon the moonlit sea! How sweet to feel, on the boon air,All our unquiet pulses cease!To feel that nothing can impairThe gentleness, the thirst for peace,-- The gentleness too rudely hurledOn this wild earth of hate and fear;The thirst for peace, a raving worldWould never let us satiate here.
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