26.
Unhappy Atlas that I am! I’m doom’d
To bear a world, a very world of sorrows;
Unbearable’s the load I bear, and e’en
The heart within me’s breaking.
O thou proud heart! thy doing ’twas indeed,
Thou wouldst be happy, utterly be happy,
Or utterly be wretched, O proud heart,
And now in truth thou’rt wretched!
27.
The years are coming and going,
To the grave whole races descend,
And yet the love in my bosom
Shall never wax fainter or end.
O could I but once more behold thee,
Before thee sink down on my knee,
And die, as these words I utter:
Dear Madam, I love but thee!
28.
I dreamt: the quivering moon gleam’d above,
And the stars cast a mournful ray;
I was borne to the town where dwelleth my love,
Many hundred miles away
And when I arrived at her dwelling so blest,
I kiss’d the stones of the stair,
Which her little foot so often had press’d,
And the train of her garment fair.
The night was long, the night was chill,
And cold were the stones that night;
Her pallid form from the window-sill
Look’d down in the moonbeam’s light.