ALL the phantoms of the future, all the spectres of the past,
In the wakeful night came round me, sighing, crying, “Fool, beware!
Check the feeling o’er thee stealing! Let thy first love be thy last!
Or, if love again thou must, at least this fatal love forbear!”
Marah Amara!
Now the dark breaks. Now the lark wakes. Now their voices fleet away.
And the breeze about the blossom, and the ripple in the reed,
And the beams and buds and birds begin to whisper, sing, or say,
“Love her, love her, for she loves thee!” And I know not which to heed.
Cara Amara!
Robert, Lord Lytton.
THE GARDEN OF MEMORY.
THERE is a certain garden where I know
That flowers flourish in a poet’s spring,
Where aye young birds their amorous matins sing,
And never ill wind comes, nor any snow.
But if you wonder where so fair a show,
Where such eternal pleasure may be seen,
I say, my memory keeps that garden green,
Wherein I loved my first love long ago.
Justin Huntly McCarthy.
IF I WERE A MONK, AND THOU WERT A NUN.
IF I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
Pacing it wearily, wearily,
From chapel to cell till day were done
Wearily, wearily,
Oh! how would it be with these hearts of ours,
That need the sunshine and smiles and flowers?
To prayer, to prayer, at the matins’ call,
Morning foul or fair;
Such prayer as from lifeless lips may fall—
Words, but hardly prayer;
Vainly trying the thoughts to raise
Which in the sunshine would burst in praise.
Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
The God revealing,
Turning thy face from the boundless boon,
Painfully kneeling;
Or in thy chamber’s still solitude,
Bending thy head o’er the legend rude.
I, in a cool and lonely nook,
Gloomily, gloomily,
Poring over some musty book
Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;
Or on the parchment margin unrolled,
Painting quaint pictures in purple and gold.