Classic Poem

I WAS a bard: — she listened to my lay
As there her questioning soul had answer found.
She stooped to pluck my wild flowers on the way

Fancies that teem from the prolific ground
In the heart's solstice, — in whose inner day
Through all the pleasant paths of earth we wound.

And sometimes through her music of delight
An undersound of sadness softly stole,
And floated, 'twixt the fountain pure and bright

Of her deep joy and heaven, a cloud of dole
That almost seemed relief; for scarce below
The noon of rapture is allowed the soul.

Hence even in life's summer, sunbeams throw
Shades on the very path they glorify,
And ecstacy would perish but for woe.

I asked not if she loved me; for reply
To every doubt, I read her glance and tone
And made them oracles of destiny.

They whispered love: — I deemed that love my own;
Nor guessed that in the mirror of my song
She saw an idol face to me unknown,

Nor that the chords of my devotion, strung
To feeling's highest tension for her sake,
And on whose notes with breathless hush she hung,

Were prized for memories which they did awake —
To her an echo what to me was life.
O, God, the strings that quivered would not break! —

He came! Can I forget that inward strife
Which made me calm? — The mightiest grief is dumb.
They met: — he clasped her, — called her plighted wife!

A frost was in that moment to benumb
My very sense of anguish — and I smiled.
Freed by despair — what after-pang could come?

She was his own, — both, Love's. They roamed the wild
And knew not it was bleak: — the wooded dell
They called not fair; for love had reconciled

And blent all difference. From their spirits fell
A glow that bathed creation. Where they stood
Light was their shadow: — bliss unspeakable

Became at once their being and its food: —
The world they did inhabit was themselves;
And they were Love's, — and all their world was good!

As o'er a barren reef that sea-ward shelves
Waves dash, their gladness sported o'er my fate;
But in the abyss no line of pity delves

Lay the wrecked hope which nought could re-create —
At least I deemed so then: and yet we parted
With blessings, and her eyes were dim with tears.

She told me I had been her friend true-hearted —
The friend she would recal in other years.
These came; and when the storm was spent there darted

Over my sombre deep, as from the spheres,
The memory of those words, at first revealing
More present gloom from all the past endears.

In time, their light and beauty o'er me stealing,
Softened despair to grief; and in its dew
My withered heart put forth one bud of feeling.

I dared not hope its life: — fierce tempests blew
From the cold east of Youth in day's decline,
And shook its tender petals: — still it grew!

It grew and blossomed to a hope divine: —
I might be like her in her nature's worth;
I might live for her though she was not mine!

From her each better impulse should take birth —
For her my song should raise and cheer mankind,
And I would sow her influence through the earth.

And, as by great attraction are combined
All kindred essences — as waters blend
With waters, flame with flame, and, though confined

By bounds material, each to other tend, —
Released from the division of our clay,
Again might be united friend with friend.

For then, immortal and beyond decay,
The store of love partaken richer grows:
Its flame erst lit for one, to all gives day!

O ye whose hearts in happy love repose,
Your thankful blessings at its footstool lay,
Since faith and peace can issue from its woes!