Will Love’s smile chase your lonely glooms,
And drape your walls, and make them warm?
Alexander Smith (1830-1867) (The Night before the Wedding).
In my notes, this strange poem is stated to have been actually written by Smith on the night before his wedding; but it is difficult to believe this. In the poem, the poet sits until dawn on his wedding-eve thinking of the “long-lost passions of his youth,” and comparing them with his calm and unimpassioned love, “pale blossom of the snow,” for the bride of the morrow. He even fears that his wife’s tenderness will keep alive the memories of his youthful loves:
It may be that your loving wiles
Will call a sigh from far-off years;
It may be that your happiest smiles
Will brim my eyes with hopeless tears;
It may be that my sleeping breath
Will shake with painful visions wrung;