Each tender purple mango shoot,
That folds and droops so bashful down,
It lives, it sucks some hidden root,
It rears at last a broad green crown.
It blossoms: and the children cry,
"Watch when the mango apples fall."
It lives; but rootless, fruitless, I,—
I breathe and dream,—and that is all.
Thus am I dead, yet cannot die;
But still within my foolish brain
There hangs a pale blue evening sky,
A furzy croft, a sandy lane.
Charles Kingsley.
TO MARY IN HEAVEN.
Thou lingering star, with lessening ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
That sacred hour can I forget,
Can I forget the hallowed grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity will not efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twined amorous round the raptured scene;
The flowers sprang wanton to be pressed,
The birds sang love on every spray,—
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaimed the speed of wingéd day.
Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?