SITH gone is my delight and only pleasure,
The last of all my hopes, the cheerful sun
That cleared my life's dark day, Nature's sweet treasure,
More dear to me than all beneath the moon,
What resteth now, but that upon this mountain
I weep, till Heaven transform me in a fountain?
Fresh, fair, delicious, crystal, pearly fountain,
On whose smooth face she oft took pleasure,
Tell me (so may thy streams long cheer this mountain,
So serpent ne'er thee stain, nor scorch thee sun,
So may with gentle beams thee kiss the moon),
Dost thou not mourn to want so fair a treasure?
While she her glassed in thee, rich Tagus' treasure
Thou envy needed not, nor yet the fountain
In which that hunter saw the naked moon;
Absence has robbed thee of thy wealth and pleasure,
And I remain like marigold of sun
Deprived, that dies by shadow of some mountain.
Nymphs of the forests, nymphs who on this mountain
Are wont to dance, showing your beauty's treasure
To goat-feet sylvans, and the wond'ring sun,
When as you gather flowers about this fountain,
Bid her farewell who placed here her pleasure,
And sing her praises to the stars and moon.
Among the lesser lights as is the moon,
Blushing through scarf of clouds on Latmos' mountain,
Or when her silver locks she laves for pleasure
In Thetis' streams, proud of so gay a treasure,
Such was my fair when she sat by this fountain
With other nymphs, to shun the amorous sun.
As is our earth in absence of the sun,
Or when of sun deprivèd is the moon,
As is without a verdant shade a fountain,
Or wanting grass, a mead, a vale, a mountain ;
1 A river of Spain, whose sands, according to the poets, were covered with gold.
2 A mountain of Asia Minor, famous as the residence of the shepherd Endymion, with whom Diana, the goddess of the moon, fell in love.
Such is my state, bereft of my dear treasure,
To know whose only worth was all my pleasure.
Ne'er think of pleasure, heart; eyes, shun the sun, Tears be your treasure, which the wand'ring moon Shall see you shed by mountain, vale, and fountain. W. DRUMMOND.
A Sorrowful Life and too Early Death.
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares;
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain;
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain.
The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done!
My spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung ;
The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green;
My youth is past, and yet I am but young;
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut, and yet 'tis hardly spun ;
And now I live, and now my life is done!
I sought for death and found it in the womb,
I looked for life, and yet it was a shade,
I trod the ground and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I am but made;
The glass is full, and yet my glass is run;
And now I live, and now my life is done.
CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE.
Stanzas to Augusta.
THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted,
It never hath found but in thee.
Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is delivered
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemnThey may torture, but shall not subdue me— 'Tis of thee that I think-not of them.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me;
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.
From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that what I most cherished
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
THOU art fair, and few are fairer,
Of the nymphs of earth or ocean.
They are robes that fit the wearer—
Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion
Ever falls and shifts and glances,
As the life within them dances.
Thy deep eyes, a double planet,
Gaze the wisest into madness
With soft clear fire. The winds that fan it
Are those thoughts of gentle gladness
Which, like zephyrs on the billow,
Make thy gentle soul their pillow.
If whatever face thou paintest
In those eyes grows pale with pleasure,
If the fainting soul is faintest
When it hears thy harp's wild measure,
Wonder not that, when thou speakest,
Of the weak my heart is weakest.
As dew beneath the wind of morning,
As the sea which whirlwinds waken,
As the birds at thunder's warning,
As aught mute but deeply shaken,
As one who feels an unseen spirit,
Is my heart when thine is near it.
SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes, Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
WHEN maidens such as Hester die
Their place ye may not well supply,
Though ye among a thousand try
With vain endeavour.
A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed
And her together.
A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate
That flushed her spirit:
I know not by what name beside
I shall it call: if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied
Her parents held the Quaker rule
Which doth the human feeling cool;
But she was trained in Nature's school,
Nature had blest her.
A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind;
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.
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