Poems

THE PARTING

’Twas a fit hour for parting,
For athwart the leaden sky
The heavy clouds came gathering
And sailing gloomily:
The earth was drunk with heaven’s tears,
And each moaning autumn breeze
Shook the burthen of its weeping
Off the overladen trees.
The waterfall rushed swollen down,
In the gloaming, still and gray;
With a foam-wreath on the angry brow
Of each wave that flashed away.
My tears were mingling with the rain,
That fell so cold and fast,
And my spirit felt thy low deep sigh
Through the wild and roaring blast.
The beauty of the summer woods
Lay rustling round our feet,
And all fair things had passed away—
’Twas an hour for parting meet.

SONG

When you mournfully rivet your tear-laden eyes,
That have seen the last sunset of hope pass away,
On some bright orb that seems, through the still sapphire skies,
In beauty and splendour to roll on its way:

Oh, remember this earth, if beheld from afar,
Appears wrapt in a halo as soft, and as bright,
As the pure silver radiance enshrining yon star,
Where your spirit is eagerly soaring to-night.

And at this very midnight, perhaps some poor heart,
That is aching, or breaking, in that distant sphere;
Gazes down on this dark world, and longs to depart
From its own dismal home, to a happier one here.

TO A STAR

Thou little star, that in the purple clouds
Hang’st, like a dew-drop, in a violet bed;
First gem of evening, glittering on the shrouds,
’Mid whose dark folds the day lies pale and dead:
As through my tears my soul looks up to thee,
Loathing the heavy chains that bind it here,
There comes a fearful thought that misery
Perhaps is found, even in thy distant sphere.
Art thou a world of sorrow and of sin,
The heritage of death, disease, decay,
A wilderness, like that we wander in,
Where all things fairest, soonest pass away?
And are there graves in thee, thou radiant world,
Round which life’s sweetest buds fall witherëd,
Where hope’s bright wings in the dark earth lie furled,
And living hearts are mouldering with the dead?
Perchance they do not die, that dwell in thee,
Perchance theirs is a darker doom than ours;
Unchanging woe, and endless misery,
And mourning that hath neither days nor hours.
Horrible dream!—Oh dark and dismal path,
Where I now weeping walk, I will not leave thee;
Earth has one boon for all her children—death:
Open thy arms, oh mother! and receive me!
Take off the bitter burthen from the slave,
Give me my birthright! give—the grave, the grave!

SONNET

Thou poisonous laurel leaf, that in the soil
Of life, which I am doomed to till full sore,
Spring’st like a noisome weed!  I do not toil
For thee, and yet thou still com’st dark’ning o’er
My plot of earth with thy unwelcome shade.
Thou nightshade of the soul, beneath whose boughs
All fair and gentle buds hang withering!
Why hast thou wreathed thyself around my brows,
Casting from thence the blossoms of my spring,
Breathing on youth’s sweet roses till they fade?
Alas! thou art an evil weed of woe,
Watered with tears and watched with sleepless care,
Seldom doth envy thy green glories spare;
And yet men covet thee—ah, wherefore do they so!

SONNET

I hear a voice low in the sunset woods;
Listen, it says: “Decay, decay, decay!”
I hear it in the murmuring of the floods,
And the wind sighs it as it flies away.
Autumn is come; seest thou not in the skies,
The stormy light of his fierce lurid eyes?
Autumn is come; his brazen feet have trod,
Withering and scorching, o’er the mossy sod.
The fainting year sees her fresh flowery wreath
Shrivel in his hot grasp; his burning breath
Dries the sweet water-springs that in the shade
Wandering along, delicious music made.