SEPARATION.*
*

A SWORDED man whose trade is blood,
In grief, in anger, and in fear,

Thro' jungle, swamp, and torrent flood,
I seek the wealth you hold so dear!

The dazzling charm of outward form,

The power of gold, the pride of birth, Have taken Woman's heart by stormUsurp'd the place of inward worth.

Is not true love of higher price

Than outward Form, tho' fair to see,
Wealth's glittering fairy-dome of ice,
Or echo of proud ancestry?—

O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see
Into the bottom of my heart,
There's such a mine of Love for thee,
As almost might supply desert!

(This separation is, alas!

Too great a punishment to bear; O! take my life, or let me pass

That life, that happy life, with her!)

The perils, erst with steadfast eye
Encounter'd, now I shrink to see-
Oh! I have heart enough to die—
Not half enough to part from Thee!

* See Note.

1816.

ON TAKING LEAVE OF

1817.*

To know, to esteem, to love—and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!
O for some dear abiding-place of Love,
O'er which my spirit, like the mother dove,

Might brood with warming wings!—O fair as kind,
Were but one sisterhood with you combined,
(Your very image then in shape and mind)
Far rather would I sit in solitude,

The forms of memory all my mental food,

And dream of you, sweet sisters, (ah, not mine!) And only dream of you (ah dream and pine!) Than have the presence, and partake the pride, And shine in the eye of all the world beside!

* See Note.

POEMS WRITTEN IN LATER LIFE.

Ἔρως ἄει λάληδρος έταιρος.

In many ways doth the full heart reveal

The presence

of the love it would conceal;

But in far more th' estranged heart lets know

The absence of the love, which yet it fain would show.

To be a Prodigal's favourite-then, worse truth,
A Miser's Pensioner-behold our lot!

O Man! that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth needed not.

WORDSWORTH, The Small Celandine.

VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-
Both were mine! Life went a maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!

When I was young!-Ah, woful when!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flashed along:-
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather, When Youth and I liv'd in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;

O! the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,

Ere I was old.

Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,

Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!