Dramatic Scenes With Other Poems, Now First Printed. By Barry Cornwall [i.e. Bryan Waller Procter]. Illustrated |
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 | Dramatic Scenes |  |
367
A COMPLAINT.
The clouds are heavy: the night is flowing
Duskily over the Eastern sky;
Rains are falling; winds are moaning:
The river is echoing sigh for sigh.
Upon its banks is a maiden plaining;
A tale she telleth of grief and wrong;
And she utters, to lighten her sad love-burthen,
The words of a half-forgotten song.
“A false friend and a bitter foe
Is Love to all who love below:
Ah! what is the use of our summer dreaming,
If life must evermore end in woe?”
Duskily over the Eastern sky;
Rains are falling; winds are moaning:
The river is echoing sigh for sigh.
368
A tale she telleth of grief and wrong;
And she utters, to lighten her sad love-burthen,
The words of a half-forgotten song.
“A false friend and a bitter foe
Is Love to all who love below:
Ah! what is the use of our summer dreaming,
If life must evermore end in woe?”
A single pause, and aside she turneth
And sendeth a thought to her father dead;
To her cottage home where her mother mourneth;
A thought to her childhood bright and fled.
Her voice it is sad and full of dread!
Hark!—It thrills over the darkening water,
Telling a tale of future slaughter,
Like the cry of the deer when the hound hath caught her.
“O Love! thou bitter foe
To all who too much love below:
Is death the end of our summer dreaming?
And life is it evermore filled with woe?”
And sendeth a thought to her father dead;
To her cottage home where her mother mourneth;
A thought to her childhood bright and fled.
Her voice it is sad and full of dread!
Hark!—It thrills over the darkening water,
Telling a tale of future slaughter,
Like the cry of the deer when the hound hath caught her.
“O Love! thou bitter foe
To all who too much love below:
Is death the end of our summer dreaming?
And life is it evermore filled with woe?”
| Dramatic Scenes | |