Denzil place a story in verse. By Violet Fane [i.e. M. M. Lamb] |
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 | Denzil place |  |
So it was over! Love had come to her
All unsuspected, in her harmless youth,
But hardly had she known that it was he
Before his wings were spread and he was gone.
Oh, desolation!—All the hopeless train
Of new emotions, hitherto unguess'd,
Crowded upon my hapless heroine—
The mystery of silence, and the love
Of solitude to brood—to brood on what?
The guilty blush, the forced and ghastly smile,
The fears, the pray'rs, the vain delusive hopes,
For what? For whom? To what ungodly end?
Oh, Misery! oh, Death! and yet, (oh, Shame!)
Strange mingling of the bitter and the sweet!
Oh, treasure newly found! oh, priceless pearl!
Oh, Life! oh, Love!
All unsuspected, in her harmless youth,
But hardly had she known that it was he
Before his wings were spread and he was gone.
Oh, desolation!—All the hopeless train
Of new emotions, hitherto unguess'd,
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The mystery of silence, and the love
Of solitude to brood—to brood on what?
The guilty blush, the forced and ghastly smile,
The fears, the pray'rs, the vain delusive hopes,
For what? For whom? To what ungodly end?
Oh, Misery! oh, Death! and yet, (oh, Shame!)
Strange mingling of the bitter and the sweet!
Oh, treasure newly found! oh, priceless pearl!
Oh, Life! oh, Love!
These were the chequer'd thoughts
That made of Constance such a guilty thing,
An alter'd woman, pale, and wrapp'd in dreams,—
A lovely shadow of her former self.
Ah, now she learnt so many hidden things!—
The secret of the bird's soft even-song,
And what the winter wind at midnight said—
The sympathetic, dumb companionship
Of Nature, with her blessèd haunted shades
And empty shrines! The sward that lately bow'd
Each happy little blade beneath his tread,—
The seat where once they sat—the target still
Stabbed with his certain arrow in the gold—
(There was another target from whose core
Upsprung a pointed poison'd random dart!)—
Ah, what a history in ev'rything!
And that same sun, and that calm careless moon,
Rising and setting as they used of yore,
But lighting with their radiance a world
Seeming so dark and different to her!
That made of Constance such a guilty thing,
An alter'd woman, pale, and wrapp'd in dreams,—
A lovely shadow of her former self.
Ah, now she learnt so many hidden things!—
The secret of the bird's soft even-song,
And what the winter wind at midnight said—
The sympathetic, dumb companionship
Of Nature, with her blessèd haunted shades
And empty shrines! The sward that lately bow'd
Each happy little blade beneath his tread,—
The seat where once they sat—the target still
Stabbed with his certain arrow in the gold—
(There was another target from whose core
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Ah, what a history in ev'rything!
And that same sun, and that calm careless moon,
Rising and setting as they used of yore,
But lighting with their radiance a world
Seeming so dark and different to her!
| Denzil place | |