Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.

And thou shouldst take another shape than thine,
Have pity on my lot, and lead me hence
Where I may think of thee. To the old fields
And wonted valleys where we once were blest.
Oh Love all day I hear them, out of sight,
This far Home where the Past abideth yet
Beside the stream that prates of other days.

"My punishment is more than I can bear.
My sorrow groweth big unto my time.
Oh Love, I would that I were mad. Oh Love,
I do not ask that thou shouldst change my Fate,
I will endure; but oh my Life, my Lord,
Being as thou art a throned saint in Heaven,
If thou wouldst touch me and enchant my sense,
And daze the anguish of my heart with dreams,
And change the stop of grief; and turn my soul
A little devious from the daily march
Of Reason, and the path of conscious woe
And all the truth of Life! Better, oh Love,
In fond delusion to be twice betrayed,
Than know so well and bitterly as I.
Let me be mad. (She wept upon her knees.)

"I will arise and seek thee. This is Heaven.
I sat upon a cloud. It bore me in.
It is not so, you heavens! I am not dead.
Alas! There have been pangs as strong as Death.
It would be sweet to know that I am dead.

"Even now I feel I am not of this world
Which sayeth day and night, 'For all but thee,'
And poureth its abundance night and day,
And will not feed the hunger in my heart.

"I tread upon a dream, myself a dream,
I can not write my Being on the world,
The moss grows unrespective where I tread.

"I can not lift mine eyes to the sunshine,
Night is not for my slumber. Not for me
Sink down the dark inexorable hours.

"I would not keep or change the weary day;
I have no pleasure in the needless night
And toss and wail that other lids may sleep.

"I am a very Leper in the Earth.
Her functions cast me out; her golden wheels
That harmless roll about unconscious Babes
Do crush me. My place knoweth me no more.

"I think that I have died, oh you sweet Heavens.
I did not see the closing of the eyes.
Perchance there is one death for all of us
Whereof we can not see the eyelids close.

"Dear Love, I do beseech thee answer me.
Dear Love, I think men's eyes behold me not.
The air is heavy on these lips that strain
To cry; I do not warm the thing I touch;
The Lake gives back no image unto me.

"I see the Heavens as one who wakes at noon
From a deep sleep. Now shall we meet again!
The Country of the blest is hid from me
Like Morn behind the Hills. The Angel smiles.
I breathe thy name. He hurleth me from Heaven.

"Now of a truth I know thou art on Earth.
Break, break the chains that hold me back from thee.
I see the race of mortal men pass by;
The great wind of their going waves my hair;
I stretch my hands, I lay my cheek to them,
In love; they stir the down upon my cheek;
I can not touch them, and they know not me.

"Oh God! I ask to live the saddest life!
I care not for it if I may but live!
I would not be among the dead, oh God!
I am not dead! oh God, I will not die!"

So throbbed the trouble of this crazed heart.
So on the broken mirror of her mind
In bright disorder shone the shatter'd World.

So, out of tune, in sympathetic chords,
Her soul is musical to brooks and birds
Winds, seasons, sunshine, flowers, and maundering trees.

Hear gently all the tale of her distress.
The heart that loved her loves not now, yet lives.
What the eye sees and the ear hears – the hand
That wooing led her thro' the rosy paths
Of girlhood, and the lenten lanes of Love,
The brow whereon she trembled her first kiss,
The lips that had sole privilege of hers,
The eyes wherein she saw the Universe,
The bosom where she slept the sleep of joy,
The voice that made it sacred to her sleep