Twin guides, that from the dawn of life till late Your lamps for me have borne, If weary of your task you hesitate To serve me further, worn And vexed with slavish toil, demanding rest Myself alone I chide, And grateful are the heavings of my breast, For light so long supplied By two such faithful friends, abused, opprest, Your rights, poor eyes! denied.
My soul, if fails thy hope, with patient brow Accept the outer dusk, And trust the inner light that serves thee now To pierce the silken husk Of truths that do impart a quiet joy. The self-illumined mind Is not dependent for its best employ On outward things, defined To outward sense;—let aught this lamp destroy, And I were truly blind.
UNKNOWN.
(On receiving the portrait of a young lady
personally unknown to the author.)
Image of one whose lips and eyes Have never moved me with their spell; Whose greeting smiles, and farewell sighs, To happier hearts their meaning tell.
The echo of thy life, to me, Is but as music heard in dreams; Or like a cloud beyond the sea, Or foreign flowers by foreign streams.
And yet I know—who may not know? That these twin windows of the soul Have had their hours of overflow, Their share of gladness and of dole.
I know, for ’tis “the common lot,” That oft within this comely brow Angelic hope, and loving thought, Have reared fair castles, crumbled now.