University of Virginia Library


24

LOVE.

Bright in the dim horizon of the years
Hung the unsettled Light that leads to Fame:
Smit with the beckoning witchery of its flame
I followed on girt round with hopes and fears
That sometimes smiled but oftener, drowned in tears,
Made the dark march a sad one: sudden there came
Between my vision and the wandering aim
A glorious form that claimed the long arrears
Of my be-wasted youth, and fixed my eye:
I gazed adoring—nor devoid of pain
Lest the angelic visitant should fly,
But, as she lingered on, Surely, thought I,
Surely the primal sentence was in vain;
Only stay thou, and Eden blooms again!