 | Lays of Leisure Hours |  |
ON DISAPPOINTMENT.
Now Disappointment do thy worst and best,Root out, not only from this tortured breast,
The love, the unbounded and the o'erwhelming love,
But even the power its passionate thrills to prove;
But this may not be—Fate will grant not this,
Nor from my heart her furies thus dismiss!—
Oh! I have travelled far, and still have found
The gloomy landmarks of my course (whose bound
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Which yet from sufferings and from wrongs shall save,)
Were still thine epochs—Oh! unbending Power,
Who from the infernal realms hath claimed thy dower,
Dire Disappointment—fiend!—that still loves best
To plunge the knife in the most feeling breast!
Oh! I have travelled on, unpausing still,
From bitter disappointment's venomed ill—
To disappointments bitterer yet—and said
(Of nought the future had to inflict afraid!)
Again and oft again—“Now Hope, farewell!
No more to me thy Heavenly falsehoods tell;
And since within my soul thou'rt mute and dead,
Since I no more thy fatal pathways tread,
Deadened my life is, darkened is my light,
And calm monotony shall set all right!”
Thus I have said,—alas! how vainly, still
The heart is treacherous to its latest thrill;
Since ever have I risen from this fond dream,
Only to find thee shape some dearer scheme;
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In some unguarded, some defenceless hour;
And then again to madden and to mourn
O'er dear delusions that can ne'er return!
| Lays of Leisure Hours | |