University of Virginia Library

Two jewels lost—Oh, long-divided pair!
Backward through time I turn to look for them,
And one I find beneath a cypress stem
Hid many a summer deep—the other, where?
By time and space so far asunder tost,
That, in a dreamland early casketed,
This, in the after years so wildly lost—
Few miss them now, few count the long since dead.
Two phantoms cross the ocean to my soul;
One steals like moonlight o'er the darkening blue;
One seems to sweep through stormshine to its goal,
Then wild with heartbreak flashes out of view.
But now, so dim with mist the sky and sea,
None cares to stand and watch for them with me;
Yet tost by time and space so far apart,
Brother and Sister! meet within my heart!

Erinna died, a flame extinguished soon—
For flame she was, of such enchanted fire
As once soared upward on Arabia's noon,
When the last Phœnix vanished from the pyre.
But half a child through all her childish time,
Still half a child in girlhood's strenuous prime,
By Duty's bride-ring with such passion worn,
By Fancy's sparkling, flowery, fairy wand,
That wrought grave wonders in her firm young hand—
By Nature's own sweet science at grey morn
Revealed, in wandering woodland-studies dear—
By these inspired, and ancient lore austere,
And the full heart that ever rushed to meet
The Fair and Good, and worship at their feet—
She lived on heights and knew not they were high,
On fire, and knew not other souls were cold;
She would have learnt it all, but was to die
Ere yet her eaglet-wings she could unfold
For her true mates to search the world, and ask
Her share in their appointed beauteous task.
Some task was waiting for her, so we deem,
Its hopes, its fears, its failures, all untried;
But now her little lifetime seems a dream,
So long ago, and so unknown she died.
Now the red rose-leaf on the pure young cheek,
More childlike as time moves, and leaves her there,
And eyes which sprang up ere the lips could speak,
Melt into shadow through the drooping hair.
Now all that girlhood, now that flushed, intense,
Young fever, are a whisper of the night,
A faint sweet resurrection, a strange sense
Of absence unexplained till morning light.
And whilst her memory in its crystal urn
Gleams fair as silver through the dust of years,
Cold evermore where sky and ocean burn
With azure fire that isle of sepulchres,
'Twixt purple passion-flower and whitest rose,
Where Death a garden's summer queen appears,
She sleeps—but others live for other tears.