Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,
Untouched, unshared by mine?
If so, at any pain or cost,
O, tell me before all is lost!
Look deeper still: if thou canst feel,
Within thy inmost soul,
That thou hast kept a portion back,
While I have staked the whole,
Let no false pity spare the blow,
But in true mercy tell me so.
Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now, lest at some future day
My whole life wither and decay.
Lives there within thy nature hid
The demon-spirit, change,
Shedding a passing glory still
On all things new and strange?
It may not be thy fault alone,—
But shield my heart against thine own.
Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day
And answer to my claim,
That fate, and that to-day's mistake,—
Not thou,—had been to blame?
Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou
Wilt surely warn and save me now.
Nay, answer not,—I dare not hear,—
The words would come too late;
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
So comfort thee, my fate:
Whatever on my heart may fall,
Remember, I would risk it all!
Adelaide Anne Procter.
SONNETS.
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held:
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer,—"This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse—"
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new-made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.