Ah! he is gone, and yet will not depart!—
Is with me still, yet I from him exiled! 35
For still there lives within my secret heart
The magic image of the magic Child,
Which there he made up-grow by his strong art,
As in that crystal[458:1] orb—wise Merlin's feat,—
The wondrous 'World of Glass,' wherein inisled 40
All long'd-for things their beings did repeat;—
And there he left it, like a Sylph beguiled,
To live and yearn and languish incomplete!

V

Can wit of man a heavier grief reveal?
Can sharper pang from hate or scorn arise?— 45
Yes! one more sharp there is that deeper lies,
Which fond Esteem but mocks when he would heal.
[[459]]Yet neither scorn nor hate did it devise,
But sad compassion and atoning zeal!
One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray'd! 50
And this it is my woeful hap to feel,
When, at her Brother's hest, the twin-born Maid
With face averted and unsteady eyes,
Her truant playmate's faded robe puts on;
And inly shrinking from her own disguise 55
Enacts the faery Boy that's lost and gone.
O worse than all! O pang all pangs above
Is Kindness counterfeiting absent Love!

? 1825-6.

FOOTNOTES:

[457:1] First published in 1834. With lines 36-43, and with the poem as a whole, compare the following fragments of uncertain date, which were first published in a note to the edition of 1893. Both the poem as completed and these fragments of earlier drafts seem to belong to the last decade of the poet's life. The water-mark of the scrap of paper on which these drafts are written is 1819, but the tone and workmanship of the verse suggest a much later date, possibly 1826.

'—— into my Heart
The magic Child as in a magic glass
Transfused, and ah! he left within my Heart
A loving Image and a counterpart.'

'—— into my Heart
As 'twere some magic Glass the magic child
Transfused his Image and full counterpart;
And then he left it like a Sylph beguiled
To live and yearn and languish incomplete!
Day following day, more rugged grows my path.
There dwells a cloud before my heavy eyes;
A Blank my Heart, and Hope is dead and buried,
Yet the deep yearning will not die; but Love
Clings on and cloathes the marrowless remains,
Like the fresh moss that grows on dead men's bones,
Quaint mockery! and fills its scarlet cups
With the chill dewdamps of the Charnel House.
O ask not for my Heart! my Heart is but
The darksome vault where Hope lies dead and buried,
And Love with Asbest Lamp bewails the Corse.'

[458:1] Faerie Queene, b. iii. c. 2, s. 19.