Ethel Churchill
These fragments, which head each chapter of the novel, were given no titles by the author. Using chapter headings is often misleading and most titles known today are those provided by Laman Blanchard. I have therefore used these in the main but, as there are fragments not included in his Literary Remains, I have where necessary provided ones of my own. These titles are merely identifiers and not of the author's design, moreover, putting these poems in chapter order does not seem to me to provide a meaningful sequence, so I have ordered them alphabetically.
AFFECTION
There is in life no blessing like affection :
It soothes, it hallows, elevates, subdues,
And bringeth down to earth its native heaven.
It sits besides the cradle patient hours,
Whose sole contentment is to watch and love ;
It bendeth o'er the death-bed, and conceals
Its own despair with words of faith and hope.
Life has nought else that may supply its place:
Void is ambition, cold is vanity,
And wealth an empty glitter, without love.
Volume 1, Chapter 26
AGE (or A REQUEST REFUSED)
Age is a dreary thing when left alone :
It needs the sunshine brought by fresher years ;
It lives its youth again while seeing youth,
And childhood brings its childhood back again.
But for the lonely and the aged man
Left to the silent hearth, the vacant home
Where no sweet voices sound, no light steps come
Disturbing memory from its heaviness —
Wo for such lot ! 'tis life's most desolate !
Age needeth love and youth to cheer the path —
The short dark pathway leading to the tomb.
Volume 2, Chapter 36
AGE AND YOUTH
" I tell thee," said the old man, " what is life.
A gulf of troubled waters — where the soul,
Like a vexed bark, is tossed upon the waves,
Of pain and pleasure, by the wavering breath
Of passions. They are winds that drive it on,
But only to destruction and despair.
Methinks that we have known some former state
More glorious than our present ; and the heart
Is haunted by dim memories — shadows left
By past felicity. Hence do we pine
For vain aspirings — hopes that fill the eyes
With bitter tears for their own vanity.
Are we then fallen from some lovely star,
Whose consciousness is as an unknown curse?"
Volume 1, Chapter 1
ALTERATION
My heart hath turned aside
From its early dreams ;
To me their course has been
Like mountain streams.
Bright and pure they left
Their place of birth ;
Soon on every wave
Came taints of earth.
Weeds grew upon the banks,
And, as the waters swept,
A bad or useless part
Of all they kept,
Till it reached the plain below,
An altered thing
Bearing gloomy trace, —
Of its wandering.
Volume 2, Chapter 3
ANCESTORS (or INTRODUCTION)
In the ancestral presence of the dead
Sits a lone power ; a veil upon the head,
Stern with the terror of an unseen dread.
It sitteth cold, immutable, and still.
Girt with eternal consciousness of ill.
And strong and silent as its own dark will.
We are the victims of its iron rule,
The warm and beating human heart its tool,
And man immortal, god-like, but its fool.
Volume 3 Chapter 18
ANOTHER DREAM
Oh ! never another dream can be
Like that early dream of ours,
When the fairy, Hope, lay down like a child,
And slept amid opening flowers.
Little we recked of our coming years,
We fancied them just what we chose;
For, whatever life's after lights may be,
It colours its first from the rose.
Volume 1 Chapter 4
ANXIETY (or DOUBTS or THE FUTURE)
Ask me not, love, what may be in my heart
When, gazing on thee, sudden teardrops start;
When only joy should come where'er thou art.
The human heart is compassed with fears;
And joy is tremulous, for it enspheres
An earth-born star, which melts away in tears.
I am too happy for a careless mirth —
Hence anxious thoughts, and sorrowful, have birth ;
Who looks from heaven, is half returned to earth.
How powerless is my fond anxiety !
I feel I could lay down my life for thee.
Yet feel how vain such sacrifice might be.
Hence do I tremble in my happiness;
Hurried and dim the unknown hours press :
I question of a past I dare not guess.
Volume 2 Chapter 8
AN AUDIENCE.
Not with the world to teach us, may we learn
The spirit's noblest lessons. Hope and Faith
Are stars that shine amid the far off heaven,
Dimmed and obscured by vapours from below:
Impatient selfishness, and shrewd distrust,
Are taught us in the common ways of life ;
Dust is beneath our feet, and at our side
The coarse and mean, the false and the unjust;
And constant contact makes us grow too like
The things we daily struggle with and scorn :
Only by looking up, can we see heaven.
Volume 2, Chapter 32
BITTER EXPERIENCE (or PRUDENCE IN POLITICS)
How often, in this cold and bitter world,
Is the warm heart thrown back upon itself!
Cold, careless, are we of another's grief;
We wrap ourselves in sullen selfishness :
Harsh-judging, narrow-minded, stern and chill
In measuring every action but our own.
How small are some men's motives, and how mean !
There are who never knew one generous thought ;
Whose heart-pulse never quickened with the joy
Of kind endeavour, or sweet sympathy. —
There are too many such !
Volume 2, Chapter 23
BRIDAL FLOWERS (or THE MARRIAGE)
Bind the white orange-flowers in her hair,
Soft be their shadow, soft and somewhat pale—
For they are omens. Many anxious years
Are on the wreath that bends the bridal veil.
The maiden leaves her childhood and her home,
All that the past has known of happy hours —
Perhaps her happiest ones. Well may there be
A faint wan colour on those orange-flowers:
For they are pale as hope, and hope is pale
With earnest watching over future years ;
With all the promise of their loveliness,
The bride and morning bathe their wreath with tears.
Volume 1 Chapter 23
CHANGE (or MEETING OF OLD FRIENDS)
How much of change lies in a little space !
How soon the spirits leave their youth behind !
The early green forsakes the bough ; the flowers,
Nature's more fairy-like and fragile ones,
Droop on the way-side, and the later leaves
Have artifice and culture — so the heart :
How soon its soft spring hours take darker hues !
And hopes, that were like rainbows, melt in shade ;
While the fair future, ah ! how fair it seemed !
Grows dark and actual.
Volume 2, Chapter 25
CHANGES IN LONDON
The presence of perpetual change
Is ever on the earth ;
To-day is only as the soil
That gives to-morrow birth.
Where stood the tower, there grows the weed ;
Where stood the weed, the tower :
No present hour its likeness leaves
To any future hour.
Of each imperial city built
Far on the Eastern plains,
A desert waste of tomb and sand
Is all that now remains.
Our own fair city filled with life,
Has yet a future day,
When power, and might, and majesty,
Will yet have passed away.
Volume 2 Chapter 29
THE CHARM GONE (or RANELAGH)
I did not wish to see his face,
I knew it could not be ;
Though not a look had altered there,
What once it was to me.
Since last we met, a fairy spell
Had been from each removed ;
How strange it is that those can change
Who were so much beloved !
It is a bitter thing to know
The heart's enchantment o'er;
But 'tis more bitter still to feel
It can be charmed no more !
Volume 3, Chapter 2
A COMPARISON (or ANOTHER LONDON LIFE)
A pretty, rainbow sort of life enough ;
Filled up with vanities and gay caprice :
Such life is like the garden at Versailles,
Where all is artificial ; and the stream
Is held in marble basins, or sent up
Amid the fretted air, in waterfalls ;
Fantastic, sparkling ; and the element,
The mighty element, a moment's toy ;
And, like all toys, ephemeral.
Volume 1, Chapter 17
CONFIDENCE
Fear not to trust her destiny with me:
I can remember, in my early youth,
Wandering amid our old ancestral woods,
I found an unfledged dove upon the ground.
I took the callow creature to my care,
And fain had given it to its nest again:
That could not be, and so I made its home
In my affection, and my constant care.
I made its cage of osier-boughs, and hung
A wreath of early leaves and woodland flowers :
I hung it in the sun ; and, when the wind
Blew from the cold and bitter east, 'twas screened
With care that never knew forgetfulness.
I loved it, for I pitied it, and knew
Its sole dependence was upon my love.
Volume 1, Chapter 24
THE CORONATION
What memories haunt the venerable pile !
It is the mighty treasury of the past,
Where England garners up her glorious dead.
The ancient chivalry are sleeping there —
Men who sought out the Turk in Palestine,
And laid the crescent low before the cross.
The sea has sent her victories : those aisles
Wave with the banners of a thousand fights.
There, too, are the mind's triumphs — in those tombs
Sleep poets and philosophers, whose light
Is on the heaven of our intellect.
The very names inscribed on those old walls
Make the place sacred.
Volume 2, Chapter 1
CURELESS WOUNDS (or CONVERATION AFTER BREAKFAST)
False look, false hope, and falsest love,
All meteors sent to me,
To shew how they the heart could move,
And how deceiving be :
They left me darkened, crushed, alone;
My spirit's household gods o'erthrown.
The world itself is changed, and all
That was beloved before
Is vanished, and beyond recall,
For I can hope no more :
The sear of fire, the dint of steel.
Are easier than such wounds to heal.
Volume 3, Chapter 11
DANGERS FACED (or THE MARRIAGE MORNING)
My heart is filled with bitter thought,
My eyes would fain shed tears;
I have been thinking upon past,
And upon future years.
Years past — why should I stir the depths
Beneath their troubled stream ?
And years that are as yet to come,
Of them I dread to dream.
Yet wherefore pause upon our way ?
Tis best to hurry on ;
For half the dangers that we fear,
We face them, and they're gone.
Volume 1, Chapter 20
DEAR GIFTS
Life's best gifts are bought dearly. Wealth is won
By years of toil, and often comes too late:
With pleasure comes satiety ; and pomp
Is compassed round with vexing vanities :
And genius, earth's most glorious gift, that lasts
When all beside is perished in the dust—
How bitter is the suffering it endures !
How dark the penalty that it exacts !
Volume 1, Chapter 28
DEATH IN THE FLOWER (or THE LABORATORY)
Tis a fair tree, the almond-tree : there Spring
Shews the first promise of her rosy wreath;
Or ere the green leaves venture from the bud,
Those fragile blossoms light the winter bough
With delicate colours, heralding the rose.
Whose own Aurora they might seem to be.
What lurks beneath their faint and lovely red ?
What the dark spirit in those fairy flowers ?
Tis death !
Volume 2, Chapter 41
DESPONDENCY
Ah, tell me not that memory
Sheds gladness o'er the past ;
What is recalled by faded flowers,
Save that they did not last?
Were it not better to forget,
Than but remember and regret ?
Look back upon your hours of youth —
What were your early years,
But scenes of childish cares and griefs?
And say not childish tears
Were nothing; at that time they were
More than the young heart well could bear.
Go on to riper years, and look
Upon your sunny spring;
And from the wrecks of former years,
What will your memory bring? —
Affections wasted, pleasures fled,
And hopes now numbered with the dead !
Volume 2, Chapter 26
DISAPPOINTMENT (or A FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT)
The deep, the long, the dreaming hours,
That I have past with thee,
When thou hadst not a single thought
Of how thou wert with me.
I heard thy voice, I spoke again,
I gazed upon thy face;
And never scene of actual life
Could bear a deeper trace
Than all that fancy conjured up,
And made thee look and say ;
Till I have loathed reality,
That chased such dream away.
Alas ! this is vain, fond, and false;
Thy heart is not for me ;
And, knowing this, how can I waste
My very soul on thee ?
Volume 1, Chapter 30
THE DISTURBING SPIRIT (or DIFFERENT OPINIONS)
Doubt, despairing, crime, and craft,
Are upon that honied shaft.
It has made the crowned king
Crouch beneath his suffering;
Made the beauty's cheek more pale
Than the foldings of her veil:
Like a child the soldiers kneel,
Who had mocked at flame or steel;
Bade the fires of genius turn
On their own breasts ; and there burn,
A wound, a blight, a curse, a doom,
Bowing young hearts to the tomb.
Well may storm be on the sky,
And the waters roll on high,
When that passion passes by:
Earth below, and heaven above,
Well may bend to thee, O Love!
Volume 1, Chapter 32
DOUBT (or THE END OF DOUBTS)
I tell thee death were far more merciful
Than such a blow. It is death to the heart;
Death to its first affections, its sweet hopes;
The young religion of its guileless faith.
Henceforth the well is troubled at the spring;
The waves run clear no longer ; there is doubt
To shut out happiness — perpetual shade;
Which, if the sunshine penetrate, 'tis dim,
And broken ere it reach the stream below.
Volume 1, Chpater 33
THE EARLY DREAM (or RETURN TO COURTENAYE HALL)
Ah ! never another dream can be
Like that early dream of ours,
When Hope, like a child, lay down to sleep
Amid the folded flowers.
But Hope has wakened since, and wept
Itself, like a rainbow, away ;
And the flowers have faded, and fallen around,
We have none for a wreath to-day.
Now, Truth has taken the place of Hope,
And our hearts are like winter hours ;
Little has after life been worth
That early dream of ours.
Volume 3, Chapter 19
EARTH LEADS TO HEAVEN (or ASKING FOR AN INVITATION)
This is a weary and a wretched life,
With nothing to redeem it but the heart.
Affection, earth's great purifier, stirs
Our embers into flame, and that ascends.
All finer natures walk this bitter world
But for a while, then Heaven asks its own.
And we can but remember and regret.
Volume 3, Chapter 4
EXPERIENCE TOO LATE (or THE CONSENT)
It is the past that maketh my despair;
The dark, the sad, the irrevocable past.
Alas ! why should our lot in life be made,
Before we know that life ? Experience comes,
But comes too late. If I could now recall
All that I now regret, how different
Would be my choice ! at best a choice of ill;
But better than my miserable past.
Loathed, yet despised, why must I think of it ?
Volume 1, Chapter 15
FAITH DESTROYED (or A LATE BREAKFAST)
Why did I love him ? I looked up to him
With earnest admiration, and sweet faith.
I could forgive the miserable hours
His falsehood, and his only, taught my heart ;
But I cannot forgive that for his sake.
My faith in good is shaken, and my hopes
Are pale and cold, for they have looked on death.
Why should I love him? he no longer is
That which I loved.
Volume 3, Chpater 10
FAITH ILL REQUITED (or CONFIDENCE)
I feel the presence of my own despair;
It darkens round me palpable and vast.
I gave my heart unconsciously; it filled
With love as flowers are filled with early dew,
And with the light of morning.
* * * * *
If he be false, he who appeared so true,
Can there be any further truth in life,
When falsehood wears such seeming?
Volume 1, Chapter 34
THE FALSE AND THE UNJUST
Not with the world to teach us, may we learn
The spirit's noblest lessons. Hope and Faith
Are stars that shine amid the far off heaven,
Dimmed and obscured by vapours from below:
Impatient selfishness, and shrewd distrust,
Are taught us in the common ways of life ;
Dust is beneath our feet, and at our side
The coarse and mean, the false and the unjust;
And constant contact makes us grow too like
The things we daily struggle with and scorn :
Only by looking up, can we see heaven.
Volume 2, Chapter 32
FALSE APPEARANCES (or DISCOVERY)
Who, that had looked on her that morn,
Could dream of all her heart had borne ?
Her cheek was red, but who could know
'T was flushing with the strife below ?
Her eye was bright, but who could tell
It shone with tears she strove to quell ?
Her voice was gay, her step was light,
And beaming, beautiful, and bright :
It was as if life could confer
Nothing but happiness on her.
Ah ! who could think that all so fair
Was semblance, and but misery there !
Volume 3, Chapter 22
THE FAREWELL (or THE END)
Farewell !
Shadows and scenes that have, for many hours,
Been my companions; I part from ye like friends —
Dear and familiar ones — with deep sad thoughts,
And hopes, almost misgivings !
Volume 3, Chapter 40
FATE (or AN EVENING ALONE)
The steps of Fate are dark and terrible;
And not here may we trace them to the goal.
If I could doubt the heaven in which I hope,
The doubt would vanish, gazing upon life,
And seeing what it needs of peace and rest.
Life is but like a journey during night.
We toil through gloomy paths of the unknown ;
Heavy the footsteps are with pitfalls round;
And few and faint the stars that guide our way :
But, at the last, comes morning ; glorious
Shines forth the light of day, and so will shine
The heaven which is our future and our home.
Volume 1, Chapter 35
THE FATHER'S LOVE (or RETURN HOME)
'Tis not my home — he made it home
With earnest love and care ;
How can it be my own dear home,
And he no longer there ?
I asked to meet my father's eyes,
But they were closed for me ;
My father, would that I were laid
In the dark grave with thee.
Where shall I look for constant love.
To answer unto mine ?
Others have many kindred hearts,
But I had only thine.
Volume 2, Chapter 38
THE FÊTE
There was a feast that night,
And coloured lamps sent forth their odorous light
Over gold carvings, and the purple fall
Of tapestry ; and around each stately hall
Were statues pale, and delicate, and fair.
As all of beauty, save her blush, were there;
And, like light clouds floating around each room,
The censers sent their breathings of perfume;
And scented waters mingled with the breath
Of flowers that died as they rejoiced in death.
The tulip, with its globe of rainbow light;
The red rose, as it languished with delight ;
The bride-like hyacinth, drooping as with shame,
And the anemone, whose cheek of flame
Is golden, as it were the flower the sun.
In his noon hour, most loved to look upon.
At first the pillared halls were still and lone.
As if some fairy palace, all unknown
To mortal eye or step : — this was not long —
Wakened the lutes, and rose the sound of song;
And the wide mirrors glittered with the crowd
Of changing shapes : the young, the fair, the proud,
Came thronging in.
Volume 2, Chapter 18
THE FIRST DOUBT
Youth, love, and rank, and wealth — all these combined,
Can these be wretched ? Mystery of the mind,
Whose happiness is in itself; but still
Has not that happiness at its own will.
She felt too wretched with the sudden fear —
Had she such lovely rival, and so near?
Ay, bitterest of the bitter this worst pain,
To know love's offering has been in vain ;
Rejected, scorn'd, and trampled under foot,
Its bloom and leaves destroyed, but not its root.
" He loves me not !" — no other words nor sound
An echo in the lady's bosom found :
It was a wretchedness too great to bear,
She sank before the presence of despair !
Volume 2, Chapter 5
FORGOTTEN TIES (or SORROWS AND PLEASURES)
It is an awful thing how we forget
The sacred ties that bind us each to each.
Our pleasures might admonish us, and say,
Tremble at that delight which is unshared;
Its selfishness must be its punishment.
All have their sorrows, and how strange it seems
They do not soften more the general heart :
Sorrows should be those universal links
That draw all life together.
Volume 3, Chapter 34
THE FUTURE (or THE FÊTE)
Not to the present is our hour confined,
The great and shadowy future is assigned
To be the glorious empire of the mind.
The past was once the future, and it wrought
In the high presence of on-looking thought ;
All that we have, was by its efforts brought.
To-day creates to-morrow, and the tree
Of good or ill grows in past hours, what we
Make for the future — certain is to be.
Volume 3, Chapter 8
GENIUS (or A SECRETARYSHIP)
Alas ! and must this be the fate
That all too often will await
The gifted hand, which shall awake
The poet's lute ? and, for its sake,
All but its own sweet self resign,
Thou loved lute, to be only thine !
For what is genius, but deep feeling
Wakening to glorious revealing ?
And what is feeling, but to be
Alive to every misery ?
Volume 3, Chapter 17
GENTLENESS PICTURED (or THE JEWELS GIVEN)
A gentle creature was that girl,
Meek, humble, and subdued;
Like some lone flower that has grown up
In woodland solitude.
Its soil has had but little care,
Its growth but little praise;
And down it droops the timid head
It has not strength to raise.
For other brighter blooms are round,
And they attract the eye ;
They seem the sunny favourites
Of summer, earth, and sky.
The human and the woodland flower
Hath yet a dearer part,—
The perfume of the hidden depths,
The sweetness at the heart.
Volume 1 Chapter 22
GIFTS MISUSED
Oh, what a waste of feeling and of thought
Have been the imprints on my roll of life!
What worthless hours ! to what use have I turned
The golden gifts which are my hope and pride !
My power of song, unto how base a use
Has it been put ! with its pure ore I made
An idol, living only on the breath
Of idol worshippers. Alas! that ever
Praise should have been what praise has been to me
The opiate of the mind !
Volume 2 Chapter 21
GOSSIPPING
These are the spiders of society;
They weave their petty webs of lies and sneers,
And lie themselves in ambush for the spoil.
The web seems fair, and glitters in the sun,
And the poor victim winds him in the toil
Before he dreams of danger, or of death.
Alas, the misery that such inflict !
A word, a look, have power to wring the heart.
And leave it struggling hopeless in the net
Spread by the false and cruel, who delight
In the ingenious torment they contrive.
Volume 2, Chapter 12
HAPPINESS WITHIN (or THE SEASON)
And yet it is a wasted heart :
It is a wasted mind
That seeks not in the inner world
Its happiness to find ;
For happiness is like the bird
That broods above its nest,
And finds beneath its folded wings,
Life's dearest, and its best.
A little space is all that hope
Or love can ever take ;
The wider that the circle spreads,
The sooner it will break.
Volume 3, Chapter 1
THE HEART'S OMENS (or THE TRUTH OF PRESENTIMENTS)
I felt my sorrow ere it came,
As storms are felt on high,
Before a single cloud denote
Their presence on the sky.
The heart has omens deep and true,
That ask no aid from words ;
Like viewless music from the harp,
With none to wake its chords.
Strange, subtle, are these mysteries,
And linked with unknown powers,
Marking mysterious links that bind
The spirit world to ours.
Volume 2, Chapter 37
HOPE (or A POET'S MIDNIGHT)
Is not the lark companion of the spring?
And should not Hope — that sky-lark of the heart-
Bear, with her sunny song, youth company ?
Still is its sweetest music poured for love ;
And that is not for me : yet will I love,
And hope, though only for her praise and tears ;
And they will make the laurel's cold bright leaves
Sweet as the tender myrtle.
Volume 1, Chapter 5
HOPE AND LOVE
The sun was setting o'er the sea,
A beautiful and summer sun ;
Crimson and bright, as if not night.
But rather day had just begun:
That lighted sky, that lighted sea.
They spoke of Love and Hope to me.
I thought how Love, I thought how Hope,
O'er the horizon of my heart
Had poured their light like yonder sun ;
Like yon sun, only to depart :
Alas ! that ever suns should set,
Or Hope grow cold, or Love forget !
Volume 2, Chapter 28
HUMANITY ANGELIC (or THE SICK ROOM)
If ever angels walked on weary earth
In human likeness, thou wert one of them.
Thy native heaven was with thee, but subdued
By suffering life's inevitable lot ;
But the sweet spirit did assert its home
By faith and hope, and only owned its yoke
In the strong love that bound it to its kind.
Volume 2, Chapter 19
ILLUSION (or DIFFERENT VIEWS OF LIFE)
And thus it is with all that made life fair,
Gone with the freshness that it used to wear.
'Tis sad to mark the ravage that the heart
Makes of itself; how one by one depart
The colours that made hope. We seek, we find ;
And find, too, charm has, with the change, declined.
Many things have I loved, that now to me
Are as a marvel how they loved could be ;
Yet, on we go, desiring to the last
Illusions vain, as any in the past.
Volume 3, Chapter 15
IMMORTALITY (or THE LAST LETTER)
Strong as the death it masters, is the hope
That onward looks to immortality :
Let the frame perish, so the soul survive,
Pure, spiritual, and loving. I believe
The grave exalts, not separates, the ties
That hold us in affection to our kind.
I will look down from yonder pitying sky,
Watching and waiting those I loved on earth
Anxious in heaven, until they too are there.
I will attend your guardian angel's side.
And weep away your faults with holy tears;
Your midnight shall be filled with solemn thought:
And when, at length, death brings you to my love.
Mine the first welcome heard in Paradise.
Volume 2, Chapter 35
INFLUENCE OF POETRY (or SIR ROBERT WALPOLE AND HOUSE)
This is the charm of poetry : it comes
On sad perturbed moments ; and its thoughts,
Like pearls amid the troubled waters, gleam.
That which we garnered in our eager youth,
Becomes a long delight in after years:
The mind is strengthened, and the heart refreshed
By some old memory of gifted words,
That bring sweet feelings, answering to our own,
Or dreams that waken some more lofty mood
Than dwelleth with the commonplace of life.
Volume 2, Chapter 30
THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEAD
Who are the Spirits watching by the dead ?
Faith, from whose eyes a solemn light is shed ;
And Hope, with far-off sunshine on the head.
The influence of the dead is that of Heaven ;
To it a majesty of power is given,
Working on earth with a diviner leaven.
To them belongs all high and holy thought :
The mind, whose mighty empire they have wrought;
And grief, whose comfort was by angels brought.
And gentle Pity comes, and brings with her
Those pensive dreams that their own light confer;
While Love stands watching by the sepulchre.
Volume 2 Chapter 34
A LADY'S BEAUTY (or THE FÊTE AT SIR ROBERT WALPOLE'S continued)
Ladye, thy white brow is fair,
Beauty's morning light is there ;
And thine eye is like a star,
Dark as those of midnight are :
Round thee satin robe is flung ;
Pearls upon thy neck are hung:
Yet thou wearest silk and gem,
As thou hadst forgotten them.
Lovelier is the ray that lies
On thy lip, and in thine eyes.
Volume 3, Chapter 6
THE LAST NIGHT WITH THE DEAD
How awful is the presence of the dead !
The hours rebuked, stand silent at their side ;
Passions are hushed before that stern repose;
Two, and two only, sad exceptions share —
Sorrow and love, — and these are paramount.
How deep the sorrow, and how strong the love !
Seeming as utterly unfelt before.
Ah ! parting tries their depths. At once arise
Affection's treasures, never dreamed till then.
Death teaches heavy lessons, hard to bear;
And most it teaches us what we have lost,
In losing those who loved us.
Volume 2, Chapter 39
LIFE SURVEYED (or COURTIERS)
Not in a close and bounded atmosphere
Does life put forth its noblest and its best;
'Tis from the mountain's top that we look forth,
And see how small the world is at our feet.
There the free winds sweep with unfettered wing;
There the sun rises first, and flings the last,
The purple glories of the summer eve;
There does the eagle build his mighty nest;
And there the snow stains not its purity.
When we descend, the vapour gathers round,
And the path narrows : small and worthless things
Obstruct our way; and, in ourselves, we feel
The strong compulsion of their influence.
We grow like those with whom we daily blend :
To yield is to resemble.
Volume 1, Chapter 29
LIFE'S MASK
Which was the true philosopher ?—the sage
Who to the sorrows and the crimes of life
Gave tears —or he who laughed at all he saw?
Such mockery is bitter, and yet just:
And Heaven well knows the cause there is to weep.
Methinks that life is what the actor is —
Outside there is the quaint and gibing mask ;
Beneath, the pale and careworn countenance.
Volume 1, Chapter 6
THE LITTLENESS OF LIFE (or THE INFLUENCE OF AN INVITATION)
Life is so little in its vanities,
So mean, and looking to such worthless aim,
Truly the dust, of which we are a part,
Predominates amid mortality.
Great crimes have something of nobility ;
Mighty their warning, vast is their remorse :
But these small faults, that make one half of life
Belong to lowest natures, and reduce
To their own wretched level nobler things.
Volume 3, Chapter 3
THE LOST (or A FRIEND AT COURT)
I did not know till she was lost,
How much she was beloved ;
She knows it in that better world
To which she is removed.
I feel as she had only sought
Again her native skies ;
I look upon the heavens, and seem
To meet her angel eyes.
Pity, and love, and gentle thoughts,
For her sake, fill my mind ;
They are the only part of her
That now is left behind.
Volume 2, Chapter 33
LOST LESSONS (or CUSTOM AND INDIFFERENCE, or A DECLARATION)
I cannot choose, but marvel at the way
In which we pass our lives from day to day ;
Learning strange lessons in the human heart;
And yet, like shadows, letting them depart.
Is misery so familiar, that we bring
Ourselves to view it as " a usual thing ?"
We do too little feel each other's pain ;
We do too much relax the social chain
That binds us to each other; slight the care
There is for grief, in which we have no share.
Volume 3, Chapter 13
LOST LOVE (or A SCENE BY MOONLIGHT)
Thou canst not restore me
The depth and the truth
Of the love that came o'er me
In earliest youth.
Their gloss is departed,
Their magic is flown ;
And sad, and faint-hearted,
I wander alone.
Volume 3, Chapter 9
LOVE (or AN ACT OF PARLIAMENT)
Love is a thing of frail and delicate growth ;
Soon checked, soon fostered ; feeble, and yet strong :
It will endure much, suffer long, and bear
What would weigh down an angel's wing to earth,
And yet mount heavenward ; but not the less.
It dieth of a word, a look, a thought ;
And when it dies, it dies without a sign
To tell how fair it was in happier hours :
It leaves behind reproaches and regrets.
And bitterness within affection's well,
For which there is no healing.
Volume 2, Chapter 24
LOVE A MYSTERY
It matters not its history — Love has wings,
Like lightning, swift and fatal; and it springs,
Like a wild flower, where it is least expected ;
Existing, whether cherished or rejected.
A mystery art thou ! — thou mighty one !
We speak thy name in beauty ; yet we shun
To say thou art our guest ; for who will own
His life thy empire, and his heart thy throne?
Volume 3, Chapter 7
LOVE'S ENDING (or THE RESULT)
And this, then, is love's ending. It is like
The history of some fair southern clime :
Hot fires are in the bosom of the earth,
And the warmed soil puts forth its thousand flowers,
Its fruits of gold — summer's regality ;
And sleep and odours float upon the air,
Making it heavy with its own delight.
At length the subterranean element
Bursts from its secret solitude, and lays
All waste before it. The red lava stream
Sweeps like a pestilence ; and that which was
A garden for some fairy tale's young queen
Is one wild desert, lost in burning sand.
Thus is it with the heart. Love lights it up
With one rich flush of beauty. Mark the end :
Hopes, that have quarrelled even with themselves,
And joys that make a bitter memory;
While the heart, scorched and withered, and o'erwhelmed
By passion's earthquake, loathes the name of love.
Volume 1, Chapter 25
LOVE'S FOLLOWERS (or THE MORALITY OF DIAMONDS)
There was an evil in Pandora's box
Beyond all other ones, yet it came forth
In guise so lovely, that men crowded round
And sought it as the dearest of all treasure.
Then were they stung with madness and despair:
High minds were bowed in abject misery.
The hero trampled on his laurell'd crown,
While genius broke the lute it waked no more.
Young maidens, with pale cheeks, and faded eyes,
Wept till they died. Then there were broken hearts —
Insanity and Jealousy, that feeds
Unto satiety, yet loathes its food ;
Suicide digging its own grave ; and Hate,
Unquenchable and deadly ; and Remorse —
The vulture feeding on its own life-blood.
The evil's name was Love — these curses seem
His followers for ever.
Volume 1, Chapter 2
LOVE'S SLAVES (or MIDNIGHT)
Where is the heart that has not bowed
A slave, eternal Love, to thee ?
Look on the cold, the gay, the proud.
And is there one among them free ?
And what must love be in a heart
All passion's fiery depths concealing.
Which has in its minutest part
More than another's whole of feeling !
Volume 3, Chapter 29
LOVE'S TIMIDITY (or DIFFICULTIES)
I do not ask to offer thee
A timid love like mine ;
I lay it, as the rose is laid,
On some immortal shrine.
I have no hope in loving thee,
I only ask to love ;
I brood upon my silent heart,
As on its nest the dove.
But little have I been beloved,
Sad, silent, and alone ;
And yet I feel, in loving thee,
The wide world is mine own.
Thine is the name I breathe to Heaven.
Thy face is on my sleep ;
I only ask that love like this
May pray for thee and weep.
Volume 1, Chapter 12
LOVE’S UNSELFISHNESS (or PARTING)
That is love
Which chooseth from a thousand only one
To be the object of that tenderness
Natural to every heart ; which can resign
Its own best happiness for one dear sake ;
Can bear with absence; hath no part in hope,
For hope is somewhat selfish : love is not,
And doth prefer another to itself.
Volume 3, Chapter 39
THE MARRIAGE VOW (or THE CHURCH)
The altar, 'tis of death ! for there are laid
The sacrifice of all youth's sweetest hopes.
It is a dreadful thing for woman's lip
To swear the heart away ; yet know that heart
Annuls the vow while speaking, and shrinks back
From the dark future that it dares not face.
The service read above the open grave
Is far less terrible than that which seals
The vow that binds the victim, not the will;
For in the grave is rest.
Volume 2, Chapter 16
THE MASK OF GAIETY (or LADY MARCHMONT'S JOURNAL)
'Tis strange to think, if we could fling aside
The mask and mantle many wear from pride,
How much would be, we now so little guess.
Deep in each heart's undreamed, unsought recess!
The careless smile, like a bright banner borne ;
The laughlike merriment; the lip of scorn;
And for a cloak, what is there that can be
So difficult to pierce as gaiety ?
Too dazzling to be scanned, the gloomy brow
Seems to hide something it would not avow ;
But mocking words, light laugh, and ready jest,
These are the bars, the curtains to the breast.
Volume 3, Chapter 12
MEMORY (or AN ALLUSION TO THE PAST)
Ah ! there are memories that will not vanish ;
Thoughts of the past we have no power to banish ;
To shew the heart how powerless mere will,
For we may suffer, and yet struggle still.
It is not at our choice that we forget,
That is a power no science teaches yet :
The heart may be a dark and closed up tomb ;
But memory stands a ghost amid the gloom !
Volume 2, Chapter 7
THE MIND'S UNREST
Mind, dangerous and glorious gift!
Too much thy native heaven has left
Its nature in thee, for thy light
To be content with earthly home.
It hath another, and its sight
Will too much to that other roam ;
And heavenly light, and earthly clay,
But ill bear with alternate sway :
Till jarring elements create
The evil which they sought to shun,
And deeper feel their mortal state
In struggling for a higher one.
There is no rest for the proud mind,
Conscious of its high powers confined ;
Vain dreams and feverish hopes arise,
It is itself its sacrifice.
Volume 1, Chapter 27
MOONLIGHT (or THE DUEL)
The moonlight falleth lovely over earth ;
And strange, indeed, must be the mind of man
That can resist its beautiful reproach.
How can hate work like fever in the soul
With such entire tranquillity around?
Evil must be our nature to refuse
Such gentle intercession.
Volume 3, Chapter 31
MUCH CHANGE IN A LITTLE TIME
And she too — that beloved child, was gone —
Life's last and loveliest link. There was her place
Vacant beside the hearth — he almost dreamed
He saw her still ; so present was her thought.
Then some slight thing reminded him how far
The distance was that parted her and him.
Fear dwells around the absent — and our love
For such grows all too anxious, too much filled
With vain regrets, and fond inquietudes :
We know not Love till those we love depart.
Volume 1, Chapter 6
MUSIC OF LAUGHTER (or CONFIDENCE)
She had that charming laugh which, like a song,
The song of a spring-bird, wakes suddenly
When we least look for it. It lingered long
Upon the ear, one of the sweet things we
Treasure unconsciously. As steals along
A stream in sunshine, stole its melody,
As musical as it was light and wild,
The buoyant spirit of some fairy child ;
Yet mingled with soft sighs, that might express
The depth and truth of earnest tenderness.
Volume 2, Chapter 13
NEGLECTED (or LORD MARCHMONT'S JEALOSY)
You never loved me ! never cared for me !
Had I been taken kindly to your heart,
This present misery were all unknown:
But I have been neglected and repelled ;
My best affections chilled, or left to feed
Upon themselves. I have so needed love,
I should have loved you but from gratitude.
If you had let me.
Volume 3, Chapter 25
NO MORE
Dream no more of that sweet time
When the heart and cheek were young ;
Dream no more of that sweet time
Ere the veil from life was flung.
Yet the cheek retains the rose
Which its beauty had of yore,
But the bloom upon the heart
Is no more.
We have mingled with the false,
Till belief has lost the charm
Which it had when hope was new!
And the pulse of feeling warm.
We have had the bosom wrung
By the mask which friendship wore;
Affection's trusting happiness
Is no more.
We have seen the young and gay
Dying as the aged die ;
Miss we not the laughing voice,
Miss we not the laughing eye ?
Wishes take the place of hope,
We have dreamed till faith is o'er;
Its freshness made life fair, and that
Is no more.
Take away yon sparkling bowl—
What is left to greet it now ?
Loathing lip that turns away;
Downcast eye and weary brow.
Hopes and joys that wont to smile,
Mirth that lit its purple store;
Friends that wont to join the pledge,
Are no more.
Volume 1, Chapter 3
Published as 'By-Gone Days' in The New Yorker, 1st Spetember 1838
A NOBLE LADY (or ARRIVED AT HOME)
A pale and stately lady, with a brow
That might have well beseemed a Roman dame,
Cornelia, ere her glorious children died ;
Or that imperial mother, who beheld
Her son forgive his country at her word.
Yet there was trouble written on her face ;
The past had left its darkness.
Volume 1, Chapter 8
OPINIONS
He scorned them from the centre of his heart,
For well he knew mankind ; and he who knows
Must loathe or pity. He who dwells apart,
With books, and nature, and philosophy,
May lull himself with pity ; he who dwells
In crowds and cities, struggling with his race,
Must daily see their falsehood and their faults,
Their cold ingratitude, their selfishness :
How can he choose but loathe them ?
Volume 1, Chapter 11
ORNAMENTS (or THE TOILETS)
Bring from the east, bring from the west,
Flowers for the hair, gems for the vest ;
Bring the rich silks that are shining with gold,
Wrought in rich broidery on every fold,
Bring ye the perfumes that breathe on the rose,
Such as the summer of Egypt bestows ;
Bring the white pearls from the depths of the sea —
They are fair like the neck where their lustre will be.
Such are the offerings that now will be brought,
But can they bring peace to the turmoil of thought ?
Can they one moment of quiet bestow
To the human heart, feverish and beating, below ?
Volume 1, Chapter 21
PARTING (or ANTICIPATION)
We do not know how much we love,
Until we come to leave ;
An aged tree, a common flower,
Are things o'er which we grieve.
There is a pleasure in the pain
That brings us back the past again.
We linger while we turn away,
We cling while we depart ;
And memories, unmarked till then,
Come crowding on the heart.
Let what will lure our onward way,
Farewell's a bitter word to say.
Volume 1, Chapter 3
THE PAST
Weep for the love that fate forbids;
Yet loves, unhoping, on,
Though every light that once illumed
Its early path be gone.
Weep for the love that must resign
The soul's enchanted dream,
And float, like some neglected bark,
Adown life's lonely stream !
Weep for the love that cannot change ;
Like some unholy spell,
It hangs upon the life that loved
So vainly and so well.
Weep for the weary heart condemned
To one long, lonely sigh,
Whose lot has been in this cold world.
To dream, despair, and die !
Volume 2, Chapter 11
PEACE WROUGHT BY PAIN (or MEETING)
Over that pallid face were wrought
The characters of painful thought ;
But on that lip, and in that eye,
Were patience, faith, and piety.
The hope that is not of this earth.
The peace that has in pain its birth ;
As if, in the tumult of this life,
Its sorrow, vanity, and strife,
Had been but as the lightning's shock,
Shedding rich ore upon the rock :
Though in the trial scorched and riven,
The gold it wins, is gold from heaven.
Volume 3, Chapter 38
PLEASURE BECOMES PAIN (or THE AUTHOR AND THE ACTRESS)
I cannot count the changes of my heart,
So often has it turned away from things
Once idols of its being. They depart —
Hopes, fancies, joys, illusions, as if wings
Sprang suddenly from all old ties, to start ;
Or, if they linger longer, life but brings
Weariness, hollowness, canker, soil, and stain,
Till the heart saith of pleasure, it is pain.
Volume 3, Chapter 14
THE POET'S FIRST ESSAY (or A FIRST NIGHT)
It is a fearful stake the poet casts,
When he comes forth from his sweet solitude
Of hopes, and songs, and visionary things,
To ask the iron verdict of the world.
Till then his home has been in fairyland,
Sheltered in the sweet depths of his own heart;
But the strong need of praise impels him forth ;
For never was there poet but he craved
The golden sunshine of secure renown.
That sympathy which is the life of fame,
It is full dearly bought : henceforth he lives
Feverish and anxious, in an unkind world.
That only gives the laurel to the grave.
Volume 2, Chapter 9
THE POET'S LOT (or A LONDON LIFE)
The poet's lovely faith creates
The beauty he believes ;
The light which on his footsteps waits,
He from himself receives.
His lot may be a weary lot ;
His thrall a heavy thrall ;
And cares and griefs the crowd know not,
His heart may know them all :
But still he hath a mighty dower,
The loveliness that throws
Over the common thought and hour
The beauty of the rose.
IVolume 1, Chapter 16
A POET'S LOVE
Faint and more faint amid the world of dreams,
That which once my all, thy image seems,
Pale as a star that in the morning gleams.
Long time that sweet face was my guiding star,
Bringing me visions of the fair and far,
Remote from this world's toil and this world's jar.
Around it was an atmosphere of light,
Deep with the tranquil loveliness of night,
Subdued and shadowy, yet serenely bright.
Like to a spirit did it dwell apart,
Hushed in the sweetest silence of my heart,
Lifting me to the heaven from whence thou art.
Too soon the day broke on that haunted hour,
Loosing its spell, and weakening its power.
All that had been imagination's dower.
The noontide quenched that once enchanted ray;
Care, labour, sorrow, gathered on the day ;
Toil was upon my steps, dust on my way.
They melted down to earth my upward wings;
I half forgot the higher, better things —
The hope which yet again thy image brings.
Would I were worthier of thee ! I am fain,
Amid my life of bitterness and pain,
To dream once more my early dreams again.
Volume 2, Chapter 21
THE POET'S PAST (or THE USUAL DESTINY OF THE IMAGINATION)
Remembrance makes the poet : 'tis the past
Lingering within him, with a keener sense
Than is upon the thoughts of common men,
Of what has been, that fills the actual world
With unreal likenesses of lovely shapes
That were, and are not ; and the fairer they,
The more their contrast with existing things;
The more his power, the greater is his grief.
Are we then fallen from some noble star.
Whose consciousness is as an unknown curse ;
And we feel capable of happiness
Only to know it is not of our sphere?
Volume 3, Chapter 35
POETRY (or THE LETTERS)
It is a weary and a bitter hour
When first the real disturbs the poet's world,
And he distrusts the future. Not for that
Should cold despondency weigh down the soul
It is a glorious gift, bright poetry,
And should be thankfully and nobly used.
Let it look up to heaven !
Volume 3, Chapter 26
THE POOR (or THE FÊTE AT SIR ROBERT WALPOLE'S)
Few, save the poor, feel for the poor :
The rich know not how hard
It is to be of needful food
And needful rest debarred.
Their paths are paths of plenteousness,
They sleep on silk and down ;
And never think how heavily
The weary head lies down.
They know not of the scanty meal,
With small pale faces round;
No fire upon the cold damp hearth
When snow is on the ground.
They never by the window lean,
And see the gay pass by ;
Then take their weary task again,
But with a sadder eye.
Volume 3, Chapter 5
A PORTRAIT (or THE FÊTE)
Many were lovely there ; but, of that many,
Was one who looked the loveliest of any —
The youthful countess. On her cheek the dies
Were crimson with the morning's exercise ;
The laugh upon her full red lip yet hung ;
And, arrow-like, light words flashed from her tongue.
She had more loveliness than beauty — hers
Was that enchantment which the heart confers.
A mouth, sweet from its smiles; a large dark eye,
That had o'er all expression mastery.
Laughing the orb, but yet the long lash made
Somewhat of sadness with its twilight shade ;
And suiting well the upcast look that seemed,
At times, as it of melancholy dreamed :
Her cheek was as a rainbow, it so changed
As each emotion o'er its surface ranged —
Her face was full of feeling.
Volume2, Chapter 4
THE POWER OF WORDS (OR THE CHALLENGE)
'Tis a strange mystery, the power of words !
Life is in them, and death. A word can send
The crimson colour hurrying to the cheek.
Hurrying with many meanings; or can turn
The current cold and deadly to the heart.
Anger and fear are in them ; grief and joy
Are on their sound ; yet slight, impalpable : —
A word is but a breath of passing air.
Volume 3, Chapter 30
PRESENTIMENT.
I feel the shadow on my brow,
The sickness at my heart ;
Alas ! I look on those I love,
And am so sad to part.
If I could leave my love behind,
Or watch from yonder sky
With holy and enduring care,
I were not loath to die.
But death is terrible to Love :
And yet a love like mine
Trusts in the heaven from whence it came,
And feels it is divine.
Volume 2, Chapter 17
PRIDE IN TRIFLES (or AN INTERVIEW)
Why, life must mock itself to mark how small
Are the distinctions of its various pride.
‘Tis strange how we delight in the unreal;
The fanciful and the fantastic make
One half our triumphs. Not in mighty things —
The glorious offerings of our mind to fate —
Do we ask homage to our vanities,
One half so much as from the false and vain :
The petty trifles that the social world
Has fancied into grandeur.
Volume 2, Chapter 27
REGRET (or A SCENE AT THE MASQUERADE)
I do not say, bequeath unto my soul
Thy memory, I rather ask forgetting ;
Withdraw, I pray, from me thy strong control;
Though, that withdrawn, what has life worth regretting ?
Alas ! this is a miserable earth !
Too late, or else too soon, the heart-beat quickens :
Hope finds too late its light was nothing worth,
And round a dark and final vapour thickens.
Volume 3, Chapter 24
THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD (or REMEMBRANCE)
Pale Memory sits lone, brooding o'er the past,
That makes her misery. She looketh round,
And asks the wide world for forgetfulness :
She asks in vain ; the shadow of past hours
Close palpable around her ; shapes arise —
Shadows, yet seeming real ; and sad thoughts,
That make a night of darkness and of dreams.
Her empire is upon the dead and gone ;
With that she mocks the present, and shuts out
The future, till the grave, which is her throne,
Has absolute dominion.
Volume 2, Chapter 40
REMINISCENCES
Ah, tell me not that memory
Sheds gladness o'er the past ;
What is recalled by faded flowers,
Save that they did not last?
Were it not better to forget,
Than but remember and regret ?
Look back upon your hours of youth —
What were your early years,
But scenes of childish cares and griefs?
And say not childish tears
Were nothing ; at that time they were
More than the young heart well could bear.
Go on to riper years, and look
Upon your sunny spring ;
And from the wrecks of former years,
What will your memory bring? —
Affections wasted, pleasures fled,
And hopes now numbered with the dead!
Volume 2, Chapter 26
REMORSE (or THE LETTERS RESTORED)
Alas ! he brings me back my early years,
And seems to tell me what I should have been.
How have I wasted God's best gifts, and turned
Their use against myself! It is too late !
Remorse and shame are crushing me to earth,
And I am desperate with my misery !
Volume 2, Chapter 28
RESOLVES (or A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE)
What mockeries are our most firm resolves !
To will is ours, but not to execute.
We map our future like some unknown coast,
And say, " Here is an harbour, here a rock —
The one we will attain, the other shun :"
And we do neither. Some chance gale springs up
And bears us far o'er some unfathomed sea.
Our efforts are all vain ; at length we yield
To winds and waves, that laugh at man's control.
Volume 1, Chapter 13
THE ROSE
Why, what a history is on the rose !
A history beyond all other flowers ;
But never more, in garden or in grove,
Will the white queen reign paramount again.
She must content her with remembered things,
When her pale leaves were badge for knight and earl ;
Pledge of a loyalty which was as pure,
As free from stain, as those white depths her leaves
Unfolded to the earliest breath of June.
Volume 2, Chapter 15
THE RUINED MIND (OR THE CHAMBER OF DEATH)
Ah ! sad it is to see the deck
Dismasted of some noble wreck ;
And sad to see the marble stone
Defaced, and with gray moss o'ergrown;
And sad to see the broken lute
For ever to its music mute.
But what is lute, or fallen tower,
Or ship sunk in its proudest hour,
To awe and majesty combined
In their worst shape — the ruined mind ?
Volume 3, Chapter 33
SECRETS (or THE CONFESSION)
Life has secrets ; and the hearts are few
That treasure not some sorrow from the world -—
A sorrow silent, gloomy, and unknown,
Yet colouring the future from the past.
We see the eye subdued, the practised smile,
The word well weighed before it pass the lip,
And know not of the misery within :
Yet there it works incessantly, and fears
The time to come ; for time is terrible,
Avenging, and betraying.
Volume 1, Chapter 14
SELF-BLINDNESS (or GAIETIES AND ABSURDITIES)
What Shakspeare said of lovers, might apply
To all the world — " 'Tis well they do not see
The pretty follies that themselves commit."
Could we but turn upon ourselves the eyes
With which we look on others, life would pass
In one perpetual blush and smile.
The smile, how bitter ! — for 'tis scorn's worst task
To scorn ourselves ; and yet we could not choose
But mock our actions, all we say or do,
If we but saw them as we others see.
Life's best repose is blindness to itself.
Volume 2, Chapter 6
SELF-REPROACH (or LADY MARCHMONT'S JOURNAL)
Deep in the heart is an avenging power,
Conscious of right and wrong. There is no shape
Reproach can take, one half so terrible
As when that shape is given by ourselves.
Justice hath needful punishments, and crime
Is a predestined thing to punishment.
Or soon, or late, there will be no escape
From the stern consequence of its own act.
But in ourself is Fate's worst minister:
There is no wretchedness like self-reproach.
Volume 3, Chapter 16
THE SICK-ROOM
'Tis midnight, and a starry shower
Weeps its bright tears o'er life and flower ;
Sweet, silent, beautiful the night,
Sufficing for her own delight.
But other lights than sky and star,
From yonder casement gleam afar ;
The lamp subdued to the heart's gloom
Of suffering, and of sorrow's room.
Volume 3, Chapter 20
SMALL MISERIES (or PUBLISHING)
Life's smallest miseries are, perhaps, its worst :
Great sufferings have great strength : there is a pride
In the bold energy that braves the worst,
And bears proud in the bearing ; but the heart
Consumes with those small sorrows, and small shames,
Which crave, yet cannot ask for sympathy.
They blush that they exist, and yet how keen
The pang that they inflict !
Volume 2, Chapter 2
STERN TRUTH (or THE MASKED BALL)
Life is made up of vanities — so small,
So mean, the common history of the day, —
That mockery seems the sole philosophy.
Then some stern truth starts up — cold, sudden, strange;
And we are taught what life is by despair : —
The toys, the trifles, and the petty cares,
Melt into nothingness — we know their worth ;
The heart avenges every careless thought,
And makes us feel that fate is terrible.
Volume 3, Chapter 23
SUCCESS ALONE SEEN
Few know of life's beginnings — men behold
The goal achieved. The warrior, when his sword
Flashes red triumph in the noonday sun ;
The poet, when his lyre hangs on the palm ;
The statesman, when the crowd proclaim his voice,
And mould opinion on his gifted tongue :
They count not life's first steps, and never think
Upon the many miserable hours
When hope deferred was sickness to the heart.
They reckon not the battle and the march,
The long privations of a wasted youth ;
They never see the banner till unfurled.
What are to them the solitary nights,
Past pale and anxious by the sickly lamp,
Till the young poet wins the world at last,
To listen to the music long his own ?
The crowd attend the statesman's fiery mind
That makes their destiny ; but they do not trace
Its struggle, or its long expectancy.
Hard are life's early steps ; and, but that youth
Is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope,
Men would behold its threshold , and despair.
Volume 1, Chapter 7
THE TEMPLE GARDEN
The fountain's low singing is heard on the wind,
Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind ;
Away in the distance is heard the far sound
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of mountains, or ocean's deep call :
Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all.
The turf and the terrace slope down to the tide
Of the Thames, that sweeps onwards a world at its side;
And dark the horizon with mast and with sail
Of the thousand tall ships that have weather'd the gale;
While beyond the arched bridge the old abbey appears,
Where England has garnered — the glories of years.
There are lights in the casement — how weary the ray
That asks from the night time the toils of the day !
I fancy I see the brow bent o'er the page,
Whose youth wears the paleness and wrinkles of age ;
What struggles, what hopes, what despair may have been.
Where sweep those dark branches of shadowy green !
Volume 2, Chapter 20
UNAVAILING REGRET
Farewell ! and when the charm of change
Has sunk, as all must sink, in shade ;
When joy, a wearied bird, begins
The wing to droop, the plume to fade;
When thou thyself, at length, hast felt
What thou hast made another feel —
The hope that sickens to despair,
The wound that time may sear, not heal ;
When thou shalt pine for some fond heart
To beat in answering thine again ; —
Then, false one, think once more on me.
And sigh to think it is in vain.
Volume 2, Chapter 14
UNGUIDED WILL (or THE ASSIGNATION)
God, in thy mercy, keep us with thy hand !
Dark are the thoughts that strive within the heart,
When evil passions rise like sudden storms,
Fearful and fierce ! Let us not act those thoughts ;
Leave not our course to our unguided will.
Left to ourselves, all crime is possible,
And those who seemed the most removed from guilt,
Have sunk the deepest !
Volume 3, Chapter 32
VANITY
Vanity ! guiding power, 'tis thine to rule
Statesman and vestryman—the knave or fool.
The Macedonian crossed Hydaspes' wave,
Fierce as the storm, and gloomy as the grave.
Urged by the thought, what would Athenians say,
When next they gathered on a market-day ?
And the same spirit that induced his toil,
Leads on the cook, to stew, and roast, and boil :
Whether the spice be mixed—the flag unfurled—
Each deems their task the glory of the world.
Volume 1, Chapter 6
VIEW OF LIFE (or AN OLD MAN'S VIEW OF LIFE)
We tremble even in our happiness ;
Hurried and dim, the unknown hours press
Heavy with care or grief, that none may ever guess.
The future is more present than the past :
For one look back a thousand on we cast,
And Hope doth ever Memory outlast.
For Hope say Fear— Hope is a timid thing,
Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering;
At least, such Hope as human life can bring.
Its home, it is not here, it looks beyond ;
And, while it carries an enchanter's wand,
Its spells are conscious of their earthly bond.
Volume 1, Chapter 31
THE VISIONARY AND THE TRUE
Ah ! waking dreams, that mock the day,
Have other ends than those
That come beneath the moonlight ray.
And charm the eyes they close.
The vision, colouring the night,
'Mid bloom and brightness wakes,.
Banished by morning's cheerful light,
Which brightens what it breaks.
But dreams, which fill the waking eye
With deeper spells than sleep,
When hours unnumbered pass us by ;
From such we wake and weep.
We wake, but not to sleep again,
The heart has lost its youth ;
The morning light that wakes us then,
Cold, calm, and stern, is truth.
Volume 1, Chapter 10
WANT OF SYMPATHY (or A MATRIMONIAL TÊTE À TÊTE)
These are the things that fret away the heart
Cold, careless trifles ; but not felt the less
For mingling with the hourly acts of life.
It is a cruel lot for the fine mind,
Full of emotions generous and true,
To feel its light flung back upon itself;
All its warm impulses repelled and chilled,
Until it finds a refuge in disdain !
And woman, to whom sympathy is life,
The only atmosphere in which her soul
Developes all it has of good and true;
How must she feel the chill !
Volume 2, Chapter 22
WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN (or LADY MARCHMONT'S JOURNAL)
We might have been ! — these are but common words,
And yet they make the sum of life's bewaihng ;
They are the echo of those finer chords,
Whose music life deplores when unavailing. —
We might have been !
Alas ! how different from what we are,
Had we but known the bitter path before us !
But feelings, hopes, and fancies, left afar,
What in the wide, bleak world can e'er restore us .' —
We might have been !
Volume 3, Chapter 21
WEAKNESS ENDS WITH LOVE (or POPE'S VILLA)
I say not, regret me ; you will not regret ;
You will try to forget me, you cannot forget ;
We shall hear of each other, ah, misery to hear
Those names from another which once were so dear !
But deep words shall sting thee that breathe of the past,
And many things bring thee thoughts fated to last ;
The fond hopes that centered in thee are all dead,
The iron has entered the soul where they fed.
Of the chain that once bound me, the memory is mine,
But my words are around thee, their power is on thine ;
No hope, no repentance, my weakness is o'er,
It died with the sentence — I love thee no more!
Volume 1, Chapter 18
WHAT IS SUCCESS? (or SUCCESS)
All things are symbols; and we find
In morning's lovely prime,
The actual history of the mind
In its own early time :
So, to the youthful poet's gaze,
A thousand colours rise, —
The beautiful which soon decays.
The buoyant which soon dies.
So does not die their influence,
The spirit owns the spell ;
Memory to him is music — hence
The magic of his shell.
He sings of general hopes and fears —
A universal tone ;
All weep with him, for in his tears
They recognise their own.
Yet many a one, whose lute hangs now
High on the laurel tree.
Feels that the cypress' dark bough
A fitter meed would be :
And still with weariness and wo
The fatal gift is won ; '
Many a radiant head lies low,
Ere half its race be run.
Volume 2, Chapter 10
THE WORLD WITHIN (or DIFFERENT VIEWS OF YOUTH AND AGE)
There was a shadow on his face, that spake
Of passion long since hardened into thought.
He had a smile, a cold and scornful smile ;
Not gaiety, not sweetness, but the sign
Of feelings moulded at their master's will.
A weary world was hidden at that heart ;
Sorrow and strife were there, and it had learnt
The weary lessons time and sorrow teach ;
And deeply felt itself the vanity
Of love and hope, and now could only feel
Distrust in them, and mockery for those
Who could believe in what he knew was vain.
Volume 1, Chapter 9
THE WRONGS OF LOVE
Alas, how bitter are the wrongs of love
Life has no other sorrow so acute :
For love is made of every fine emotion,
Of generous impulses, and noble thoughts ;
It looketh to the stars, and dreams of Heaven ;
It nestles 'mid the flowers, and sweetens earth.
Love is aspiring, yet is humble, too:
It doth exalt another o'er itself,
With sweet heart-homage, which delights to raise
That which it worships ; yet is fain to win
The idol to its lone and lowly home
Of deep affection. Tis an utter wreck
When such hopes perish. From that moment, life
Has in its depths a well of bitterness,
For which there is no healing.
Volume 1, Chapter 19
THE YOUNG POET'S FATE (or A REQUEST)
Trace the young poet's fate
Fresh from his solitude — the child of dreams,
His heart upon his lip, he seeks the world
To find him fame and fortune, as if life
Were like a fairy tale. His song has led
The way before him ; flatteries fill his ear,
And he seems happy in so many friends.
What marvel if he somewhat overrate
His talents and his state !
Volume 3, Chapter 36
YOUTH AND LOVE (or THE DISCLOSURE)
Young, loving, and beloved — these are brief words ;
And yet they touch on all the finer chords,
Whose music is our happiness ; the tone
May die away, and be no longer known,
In the sad changes brought by darker years,
When the heart has to treasure up its tears,
And life looks mournful on an altered scene —
Still it is much to think that it has been.
Volume 3, Chapter 37