What profits it
Alone on this prone slope to sit
Where thou didst press the heath,—and see how dun
The landscape seems, lit only by the sun?
Yet, ah! not vain
To visit thy fair haunts again—
To trace thy footsteps by the upturned stone,
And conjure back thy looks, thy words, thy tone!
Like music fine
That simple seeming speech of thine
Hath in it soft harmonics, only heard
When from the memory fades the uttered word.
And to mine eyes
Undazzled by thyself, doth rise
An image lovelier and more like to thee
Than even thy bodily self which sight can see.
Ah! The wind shakes
The withered leaves, and Love awakes,
And to the vacant landscape cries in vain:
“Ah, heaven! to have her at my side again!”
Love Lies Bleeding.
THE OUTCAST.
THOU wilt come back again, but not for me,
Fair little face!
Thou wilt come back, but, ah! I may not see
That day of grace.
No sword is at the Eden’s gate I leave;
But viewless hands
Have thrust me into endless night, to grieve
In loveless lands.
Thou wilt come back: thy footsteps make the spring,
And birds sing round;
But I, in wilderness wandering,
Shall hear no sound;