The poems of Owen Meredith (Honble Robert Lytton.) ::

There is a pleasure that is born of pain.
The grave of all things hath its violet.
Else why should Love with holy rites be fain
To deck the bier of Hope, and robe Regret?
Why put the posy in the cold clay hand?
Why plant the rose above the lonely grave?
Why bring the embalmèd corpse across the wave,
And deem the dead more near in native land?

II

Wherefore, if I have girt the loin, and lit
The pilgrim lamp, along the waste of years
To find the backward path, and follow it,
Thro' many a dubious winding wet with tears,
Thither where, wormlike and unwitness'd, stole
Into youth's unripe rose the wingless Love
Who round about his budding winglets wove
The fibres of the substance of my soul,

III

It is not with resentful hand to cast
From out the blemisht garden of my life
A single floweret of the faded past,
Nor from the roots with unreluctant knife
Tear any thought whose canker'd growth, once green,
Fed wasteful wishes. Past with past is twined
So in the midmost texture of the mind,
That from the tangled depths of what hath been

IV

Who can pluck out the bitter weed of pain,
Nor harm one tendril of remember'd joy?
Who, tho' resolved to rid the burthen'd brain
Of love's regrets, love's memories would destroy?
Not I, at least, whate'er those memories be!
To whom, upsmiling from the past laid bare,
The innocent eyes of Childhood plead ‘Forbear!
Nor injure us, who never injured thee.’

V

Unhurt, undimm'd, tho' mine with tears be fill'd,
Still smile, sweet eyes! still light my footsteps on
Far off in Memory's holiest haunts to build
A bower for Love's last bride, Oblivion!
And thou, divine Remembrance, thou that art
The cupbearer of gods, with rapture strong
Brim all these vacant chalices of song!
Pour out thy nectarous urn! I hold my heart.

VI

I hold my heart. It fills, o'erflows mine eyes,
And thro' the flashing fall of sudden tears,
Dim in the starlight of delicious skies,
Once more the garden of my youth appears,
Once more the form, the face, that made erewhile
Dull time divine, and all his glowing hours
Deep heavens wherein love dwelt! The breath of flowers
Is on the air, and on my spirit her smile,

VII

Sweet with unspoken joy. The breeze is dead.
The leaf is silent on the slumbrous bough,
As I at her loved feet. No word is said,
But I can feel her warm hand wandering now
Thro' my thrill'd hair. We are alone together.
How? where? What matter? Somewhere in a dream,
Drifting, slow drifting down a starlit stream.
Whither! Together, and I care not whither!

VIII

The summer moon is set. There is no light
Save of the thick-sown stars—a glory pale
In purple air—and what, by fits, makes bright
Red oleanders in a rocky vale
Flusht by the twinkling fly, whose tremulous spark
Throbs in and out, like passion-kindled hope
Thro' mine own heart. I knew the laurell'd slope,
I know each cypress sighing on the dark,

IX

I know the flowers, the fields, and whence she twined
Thro' those warm curls the wild anemonies.
Stream, you sweet curls, forever unconfined,
In hovering shade o'er these enraptured eyes!
Fall not, you favour'd flowers, from that white hand!
Stay, shy foot, peeping from this snowy skirt!
No daisy, prest by you, was ever hurt.
O love, forever thus before me stand!

X

“Forever thus?” Ah, rash illomen'd word!
Most sure to rouse the slumbering Fates to wrath,
When on the foolish lips of Joy 'tis heard.
Joy, that was never longlived, and whose path
Is thro' a world that knows him not! Sad years
Have worn that moment's place from memory now,
And she is gone,—I know not where, but know
Wishes are pilgrims to the vale of tears;

XI

And every wind is burthen'd with the moan
Of some man's loss. By night, on Shinar plain,
'Mid Babel's battlements by Heaven o'erthrown,
No baffled builder ever wail'd in vain
Hope's fabric fallen, with a grief more bleak,
More bitter, more unshelter'd, than my own.
For all I built and blest is broken down,
And if I lean upon my heart 'twill break.

XII

Behold these shatter'd shards—once aëry towers,
With pillar'd porches, built into the blue
Of blissful climes, the home of happy hours,—
Now ruins bare, round which the years renew
Only the casual weed, and creeping shade.
Pause, stranger, and be sad that such things were
And are not. Say, at least, the plan was fair,
The structure bravely, beautifully, made.

XIII

How firmly hewn from out the inmost heart,
How lightly lifted to the upmost heaven,
The temple rose! and, ah, by what fond art
With hallow'd names its gracious walls were graven!
What spacious music bathed these silent shrines
Of pious harps by priestly fingers play'd!
What happy whisperers wander'd in the shade
Of these lone aisles where now no taper shines!

XIV

But there Bliss settles not. She will not dwell
In any habitation made by hands.
Free as the bird of heaven, nor tameable
By careful craft, she over seas and lands
Hovers in hollow air. From spray to spray,
Set trembling by her touch, she springs, and sings;
And, while thou listenest, upon lightest wings,
Scared by a sigh, a breath, she flits away.

XV

Build not! It comes and goes without our will,
The wisht Delight, for which we early rise,
And so late rest, and so long labour still.
Sleep! heedless, deedless, mindless, with shut eyes.
And o'er thy dreaming head, with wings aquiver,
'Twill perch unsummon'd, and ungreeted sit.
O breathe not, breathe not! Fear to welcome it.
Soon as thou call'st it thine, 'tis fled forever.

XVI

I cannot build again, but I will deck
With flowers of later growth, Love's broken pile.
The bliss that's gone I cannot beckon back,
But beauty haunts the heart it fill'd erewhile.
These balms and spices, strewn the bier above
Of one fair corpse, shall from corruption save her.
I bless my lost one for the love I gave her,
And blame not anything she gave my love.

University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI