 | Poems |  |
77
THE LOVER'S FEAR.
There is a grace upon the waving trees,
A beauty in the wide and heaving sea,
A glory is there in the rushing breeze,
Yet what are all these fairy things to me?
What by the side of such an one as thee?
They weigh as dust against the purest gold;
And all the words of fine society
And all the famous thoughts great men have told,
By side of thee seem dull,—dull, heavy and most cold.
A beauty in the wide and heaving sea,
A glory is there in the rushing breeze,
Yet what are all these fairy things to me?
What by the side of such an one as thee?
They weigh as dust against the purest gold;
And all the words of fine society
And all the famous thoughts great men have told,
By side of thee seem dull,—dull, heavy and most cold.
If thou art lost to me, farewell my heart!
There is one jewel for thy prizing here,
But how companionless and chilled thou art,
If this great lustre, unto thee so dear
Fall, like an autumn leaf, withered and sere,
And leave thee on the shore of time, alone;
So shall this living earth be thy true bier,
Its every sound a wretched, mournful tone,
And all thy passions' tears turned into hardest stone.
There is one jewel for thy prizing here,
But how companionless and chilled thou art,
If this great lustre, unto thee so dear
Fall, like an autumn leaf, withered and sere,
And leave thee on the shore of time, alone;
So shall this living earth be thy true bier,
Its every sound a wretched, mournful tone,
And all thy passions' tears turned into hardest stone.
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