The Poetical Works of Anna Seward :: :: University of Virginia Library

Fled are the years Love should have call'd his own,
Bearing my wasted youth they roll'd away;
Dost thou conceive, my husband, how I moan
Thro' the long, lonely, disappointed day?

Night comes.—Ah! every instant, as it flies,
Feeds my impatience to behold thee here.—
Morning will soon relume the darken'd skies,
But when shall my soul's morning re-appear?

Each separated moment dost thou count
With a regret solicitous as mine?
Ruthless the foe who swells their vast amount,
And bids thee in unransom'd bondage pine!

376

For thee, I judge thee by myself, and know,
Dear, hapless Exile! all thou must endure;
The cheerless days, and every heart-sick woe
That Liberty might chase, and Love should cure.

Yet, O! when absence all my soul o'er-powers,
Why does thy pen with-hold the only aid?
When gales blow homeward from the hostile shores,
Why are th' expected lines of Love delay'd?

Question unwise!—Does not this heart require
Trust in my husband's tenderness and truth?
What else can slake the slow-consuming fire
My peace that scorches, and that wastes my youth?

Trust in his love my heart demands,—and, Oh!
Another confidence blest power obtains,
Rescuing my senses from severer woe,
Than e'en this cruel banishment ordains;

Reliance that kind Heaven preserves his life,
His health from wasting by Disease's brands;
That not to their restraints his faithful wife
Owes her late baffled hopes and vacant hands.

If she may judge his feelings by her own,
And grateful Memory urges that she may,

377

He numbers tear for tear, and groan for groan,
Thro' the slow progress of the joyless day.

With sweet remembrances my thrilling heart
Full of the Past surrounds itself in vain;
They rise!—they charm!—but soon, alas! impart,
By sad comparison, increase of pain.

No fond deception, nor yet Hope, nor Fear
Arrest the pace of life-exhausting Time!—
He might return!—one word, and he is here!—
Ah! why are bonds for him who knows not crime?

Fierce War ordains them!—Fiend of human kind!—
Fetters and death one murder overtake;
From thee the Guiltless no exemption find,
Thy murder'd millions glut the vulture's beak!

And from such fate remember, O my soul,
Exile and bonds severe redemption prove;
That thought drops sweetness in the bitter bowl
Quaff'd to the dregs by long-divided love.

Oft to my aid this consciousness I call,
To close the eyes, which still have op'd to weep.—
When Night and Sorrow spread their mingled pall,
That thought distills th' oblivious balm of sleep.

378

All things around me seem to expect him here;
My Husband's favourite robe enfolds me still;
Here have I rang'd the books he lov'd,—and there
Placed the selected chair he us'd to fill.

Again to be resum'd, if yielding Fate,
At length, would give him back to love and me;
Then should I see him there reclin'd sedate,
Our darling children clinging round his knee!

And lo! at yonder table where they stand!—
Their glances o'er the map of England stray;
Ah! on the too, too interesting land
How bends thy Annise her intense survey!

And now she smiles, and to her brother turns,
Her finger placed on Lichfield!—there, she says,
There is our dear, dear father!—O! how yearns
My very soul to mark their ardent gaze!

Frequent, this killing absence to beguile,
Anxious I watch, as traits of thee arise,
I see them playing in my Annise' smile,
I meet them in thy Frederic's candid eyes.

Their strengthen'd bloom, their much expanded mind
Shall recompense my beauty's vanish'd trace;

379

Yet thou wilt love me more, when thou shalt find
Thy absence written on my faded face.

Dearest, farewell!—tho' misery now be ours,
Slow time will bring the re-uniting day,
When Thou, and Joy, shall bless these lonely bowers,
By sweet excess o'er-paying long delay!