"And I alone was cursed and loathed:
'T was in a garden bower
I mused one eve, and scalding tears
Fell fast on many a flower;
And when I rose, I marked, with awe
And agonizing grief,
A frail mimosa at my feet
Fold close each fragile leaf."
"Alas! how dark my lot, if thus
A plant could shrink from me!
But when I looked again, I saw
That from the honey-bee,
The falling leaf, the bird's gay wing.
It shrank with pain or fear:
A kindred presence I had found,—
Life waxed sublimely clear."
"I climbed the lofty mountain height,
And communed with the skies,
And felt within my grateful heart
New aspirations rise.
Then, thirsting for a higher lore,
I left my childhood's home,
And stayed not till I gazed upon
The hills of fallen Rome."
"I stood amid the glorious forms
Immortal and divine,
The painter's wand had summoned from
The dim Ideal's shrine;
And felt within my fevered soul
Ambition's wasting fire,
And seized the pencil, with a vague
And passionate desire"
"To shadow forth, with lineaments
Of earth, the phantom throng
That swept before my sight in thought,
And lived in storied song.
Vain, vain the dream;—as well might I
Aspire to light a star,
Or pile the gorgeous sunset-clouds
That glitter from afar."
"The threads of life have worn away;
Discordantly they thrill;
And soon the sounding chords will be
For ever mute and still.
And in the spirit-land that lies
Beyond, so calm and gray,
I shall aspire with truer aim:—
Ave Maria! pray!"