Classic Poem

I.

'T WAS wrongly done, to let her know the feeling
Which mask'd so long within my heart lay hid,
Yet now I wonder at so well concealing
My soul's full tenderness, as long I did; —
'Twas wrongly done — and yet, howe'er it move
Her fervid nature thus to love in vain,
'Twere better vainly even thus to love
Than not to know she was beloved again!

Those hours of passion now for ever pass'd,
Those wild endearments that we oft have known,
Needed they not the veil around them cast
That love, acknowledged love, at last hath thrown?
Long in remembrance as they now may live,
However sad that living place may be,
That love a hallow'd tenderness will give
To things all bitter else in memory.

II.

In dreams — in dreams she answers to my yearning,
And fondly lays her downy cheek to mine;
In dreams each night that faithful form returning
Will on my breast with sweet content recline:
Awhile my heart keeps time to her soft breathing,
Heaving in motion to her bosom heaving.

I wake — and oh, there is an inward sinking,
A drear soul-faintness coming o'er me then,
That through the livelong day but makes my thinking
One fond, fond aching thus to dream again, —
Soul — soul, where art thou through the day employ'd,
Only to fill at night my bosom's void?

III.

What though I sigh to think that after all
'Twas half some erring fancy of the mind,
Half that illusion which they " love " miscall
Whose sense dreams not of sentiment refined? —
They to whom ne'er that gush of soul was given
Which melts the heart to mould it but for Heaven —

What though to think it was but this perchance
Prompts the half-wistful — half-disdainful sigh;
Makes the fond tone — the tear — the tender glance
Seem less than valueless in memory:
Still would I rather my love run to waste
Than she I love " love's bitterness " should taste.