TO BE CONTINUED.
A CONVERT.
1856.
(These lines express the feelings of one, now at rest, who was loved and honored by all who knew him—including, probably, those who cast him off.)
I.
Ah me! my alienated friends,
Whose friendship, like a branch half-broke,
With all its mildewed blossoms bends,
And piecemeal rots;—how kind the stroke
That bond—your bondage—sent to sever!
Yet, can I wish it? Never, never!
II.
I hear them tread your festal floors:
When now the lights no longer burn,
Alone I haunt your darkened doors:
The guests are gone; yet I return:
In dreamless sleep outstretched you lie:
I dream of all the days gone by.
III.
Against myself your part I take:
“I was of those whose spring is fair;
Whom men but love in hope, and wake
To find (youth flown) the worse for wear:
’Gainst the defaulter judgment goes:
I lived on trust, and they foreclose.”
IV.
And many times I say: “They feel
In me the faults they spare to name;
Nor flies unjust the barbèd steel,
Though loosened with a random aim.”
Officious zeal! for them I plead
Who neither seek such aid, nor need.
V.
Give up thy summer wealth at last,
Sad tree; and praise the frost that bares
Thy boughs, ere comes that wintry blast
Which fells the grove that autumn spares.
There where thou lov’st thou liv’st! Bequeath,
Except thy bones, no spoils to death!
VI.
To others sovereign Faith exalts
Her voice from temple and from shrine:
For me she rears from funeral vaults
A cross that bleeds with drops divine;
And Hope—above a tombstone—lifts
Her latest, yet her best of gifts.
Aubrey de Vere.