How shall I speak of sadness, And seem not thankless to my God and thee? How can the lightest wish but seem to be The very whim of madness? Yet, oh, there is a boon thy love beside- List, while my boldness lingers! If thou hadst won yon twinkling star to hear thee--If thou couldst bid the rainbow's curve bend near thee If thou couldst charm thy fingers To weave for thee the Sunset's tent of gold— If thou hadst Ariel's gift, To course the veined metals of the earth If thou couldst wind a fountain to its birth If thou couldst know the drift Of the lost cloud that sailed into the sky Wouldst keep it for thine own unanswered eye? It is thy life and mine !— Thou in thyself, and I in thee, misprison For thou, whose mind should shine I have told o'er thy powers I know thy spirit calm, and true, and bold: And seen thee, in the wildest flush of youth Thou hast the secret strange To read that hidden book, the human heart; Thou hast the ready writer's practised art; Thou hast the thought to range The broadest circles Intellect hath ran And thou art God's best work-an honest man! And yet thou slumberest here Like a caged bird that never knew its pinions, And others track in glory the dominions Setting their weaker eyes unto the sun, And plucking honour that thou shouldst have won. Oh, if thou lov❜dst me ever, Ernest, my husband! If th' idolatry That lets go heaven to fling its all on thee— If to dismiss thee never In dream or prayer, have given me aught to claimHeed me-oh, heed me! and awake to Fame! Her lips Closed with an earnest sweetness, and she sat Gazing into his eyes as if her look Searched their dark orbs for answer. The warm blood Into his temples mounted, and across His countenance the flush of passionate thoughts Passed with irresolute quickness. He rose up And paced the dim room rapidly awhile, Calming his troubled mind, and then he came And laid his hand upon her orbéd brow, And in a voice of heavenly tenderness Answered her :— Before I knew thee, Mary, Ambition was my angel. I did hear My days were visionary, My nights were like the slumbers of the mad, I read the burning letters Of warlike pomp, on History's page, alone; I only felt the trumpet's stirring blast, And lean-eyed Famine stalked unchallenged past! I heard, with veins of lightning, The utterance of the Statesman's word of power Binding and loosing nations in an hour But while my eye was brightening, A masked detraction breathed upon his fame, And a curst serpent slimed his written name. The Poet rapt mine ears With the transporting music that he sung. And bathed the world in tears And then he turned away to muse apart, And Scorn stole after him and broke his heart! Yet here and there I saw One who did set the world at calm defiance, And press right onward with a bold reliance; And he did seem to awe The very shadows pressing on his breast, And, with a strong heart, held himself at rest. And then I looked again, And he had shut the door upon the crowd, |