 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
325
SONNETS.—OH, FRIEND! 'TIS NOT MY CHEEK.
I.
Oh, friend! 'tis not my cheek that tells the tale—My heart is wither'd in me; all is lost
Which I had striven to shelter from the frost—
My blossoms borne away upon the gale!
I've lived in vain; and now my spirits fail;
Hopeless of succor all, by fate denied;
Rebuked as well by fortune as by pride,
My powers at waste; the toils of thirty years
Fruitless; and they for whom alone I strove,
Scornful of all the tribute in my love,
And questioning the powers which even in tears
Have labored in their honor, for their fame!
And what is left me now, but nurse my cares
In the same solitude that hides my shame?
II.
You smile at my misgiving: see me move,Still, calm, in this cold world, forgetting nought;
And ready, at each rising of the thought,
The ancient faculty to use and prove.
Yet am I withering fast. Even as the tree,
Which the worm gnaws within, and still must gnaw,
Looks green in the gay sunlight—with no flaw—
And wears a brow erect and aspect free!—
The doom is written—the proud tree shall fall,
Sudden, with all his green tops waving high!
You see my fate in his, and his in me—
And men who seldom know even what they see,
Wonder of what disease the tree should die,
That shone so late, the wonder of them all!
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |