Classic Poem

With the freshness and placid sensations of morning,
As yet all unconscious of hope or of plan,
(Sweet gleams through thin hazes the prospect adorning,)
'Twas thus that our dawn of attachment began.
If 'twere Friendship or Love, that we knew not full surely,
But yet 'twas delicious to saunter along,
Not quite quessing whither, but feeling securely,
With such omens around us—we couldn't go wrong.

With hearts thus uncertain, (for hearts have their weather,)
Full many a pathway we threaded, and grove;
Till, at last, (so it fell,) we stood plighting together
In the precincts—nay, right in the presence of Love.
We have plighted! And now—(as yon mid-sun is beaming
With the hazes of morning no longer at strife)—
So Love his meridian fervour is streaming,
And quickening all round us the landscape of life.
If mists gather o'er, he pervades and enlightens;
His eyes glance a magic wherever they fall;
A magic the Present—the Future that brightens;
That modifies, beautifies, glorifies all.
And dost Thou then sigh, his duration distrusting,
And deem'st Thou such brilliancy never can last?
That suns shall wax fainter; that hearts will be rusting,
And that lovers must weep over happiness—past.

What though glorious at mid-day the Master of Heaven,
Yet are they less dear, his slant rays, ere he part?
And hath not Love too his mild glories of even,
His warm peaceful hues—his soft skies for the heart?
And such are the colours his hand shall shed over us,
When youth's throbbing pulse shall to calmness give place;
Enough that, when silence and darkness shall cover us,
We have felt his full flame—and but die with the race.
And I feel it, Belovèd!—they do not deceive us,
Who say that, hereafter, some welcoming shore
Shall to home of yet brighter existence receive us,
To love, as we now love, and ne'er to part more.