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II.

Он! my dear mother, art thou still awake?
Or art thou sleeping on thy Maker's arm,-
Waiting in slumber for the shrill alarm
Ordain'd to give the world its final shake?
Art thou with "interlunar night " opaque
Clad like a worm while waiting for its wings;
Or doth the shadow of departed things
Dwell on thy soul as on a breezeless lake!
Oh! would that I could see thee in thy heaven
For one brief hour, and know I was forgiven
For all the pain and doubt and rankling shame
Which I have caused to make thee weep or sigh.
Bootless the wish! for where thou art on high,
Sin casts no shadow, sorrow hath no name.

1845.

III.

HAST thou not seen an aged rifted tower,
Meet habitation for the Ghost of Time,
Where fearful ravage makes decay sublime,
And destitution wears the face of power?
Yet is the fabric deck'd with many a flower
Of fragrance wild, and many-dappled hue,
Gold streak'd with iron-brown and nodding blue,
Making each ruinous chink a fairy bower.
E'en such a thing methinks I fain would be,
Should Heaven appoint me to a lengthen'd age;
So old in look, that Young and Old may see
The record of my closing pilgrimage:

Yet, to the last, a rugged wrinkled thing

To which young sweetness may delight to cling!

IV.

LET me not deem that I was made in vain,
Or that my Being was an accident,
Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,
Not wish'd to be, to hinder would not deign.
Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain
Hath its own mission, and is duly sent

To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent

'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main.
The
very shadow of an insect's wing,

For which the violet cared not while it stay'd,
Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,

Proved that the sun was shining by its shade:

Then can a drop of the eternal spring,

Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?

V.

PAINS I have known, that cannot be again,
And pleasures too that never can be more:
For loss of pleasure I was never sore,
But worse, far worse it is, to feel no pain.
The throes and agonies of a heart explain
Its very depth of want at inmost core;
Prove that it does believe, and would adore,
And doth with ill for ever strive and strain.
I not lament for happy childish years,
For loves departed, that have had their day,
Or hopes that faded when my head was grey;
For death hath left me last of my compeers :
But for the pain I felt, the gushing tears
I used to shed when I had gone astray.

VI.

WHY should I murmur at my lot forlorn?
The self-same Fate that doom'd me to be poor
Endues me with a spirit to endure

All, and much more than is, or has been borne
By better men, of want and worldly scorn.
My soul has faith-my body has the nerve
sins deserve:

To brave the penance that my

And yet my helpless state I deeply mourn.

Well could I bear to be deserted quite;

Less should I blame my fortune were it worse:

But taking all, it yet hath left me friends,

For whom I needs must mourn the wayward spite That hides my purpose in an empty purse;

Since what I grateful wish, in wishing ends.

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