VI.
Now never more, oh! never, in the worth
Of its pure cause, let sorrowing love on earth
Trust fondly—never more! The hope is crush’d
That lit my life, the voice within me hush’d
That spoke sweet oracles; and I return
To lay my youth, as in a burial urn,
Where sunshine may not find it. All is lost!
No tempest met our barks—no billow toss’d;
Yet were they sever’d, even as we must be,
That so have loved, so striven our hearts to free
From their close-coiling fate! In vain—in vain!
The dark links meet, and clasp themselves again,
And press out life. Upon the deck I stood,
And a white sail came gliding o’er the flood,
Like some proud bird of ocean; then mine eye
Strain’d out, one moment earlier to descry
The form it ached for, and the bark’s career
Seem’d slow to that fond yearning: it drew near,
Fraught with our foes! What boots it to recall
The strife, the tears? Once more a prison wall
Shuts the green hills and woodlands from my sight,
And joyous glance of waters to the light,
And thee, my Seymour!—thee!
I will not sink!
Thou, thou hast rent the heavy chain that bound thee!
And this shall be my strength—the joy to think
That thou may’st wander with heaven’s breath around thee,
And all the laughing sky! This thought shall yet
Shine o’er my heart a radiant amulet,
Guarding it from despair. Thy bonds are broken;
And unto me, I know, thy true love’s token
Shall one day be deliverance, though the years
Lie dim between, o’erhung with mists of tears.