A BALLAD OF LOST LOVERS.
Beyond the end of Paradise
Where never mortal may repair,
A phantom-haunted forest lies
With twisted branches always bare,
And here unhappy lovers fare
And ever more complain their lot,
Ah! pity them that wander there,
Half-remembered and half-forgot.
There Orpheus leaves his lute and cries
No more on Eurydice the fair,
There silent Sappho sits and sighs,
Sad as the violets in her hair,
And pale Francesca's heart-strings stir
(She knows not why) if Launcelot
Look round, and dead days call to her
Half-remembered and half-forgot.
There Jason walks with coward eyes
Bent down yet seeing everywhere
How fiery vested Glaucé dies,
And white Medea's wild despair,
Fair Rosamond and French Heaulmière,
And he who sang the queenly Scot,
Meet many another wanderer,
Half-remembered and half-forgot.
Alas! they never shall arise
Nor leave this lonely limbo where
They share not in our common skies,
And know not of our sunlit air;
They had their time for work and prayer,
For hope and help, but used them not,
Or if they dreamed that such things were,
Half-remembered and half-forgot.
Envoy.
Lovers, I pray ye mind whene'er
Your youth is proud and passion-hot,
How Love itself may turn a care
Half-remembered and half-forgot.
A. Mary F. Robinson.