After Paradise or Legends of Exile :: :: University of Virginia Library

After Paradise or Legends of Exile

With Other Poems: By Robert, Earl of Lytton (Owen Meredith)

Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (1831-1891)

10.

ALLEGRO, ANDANTE, ADAGIO.

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217

O that the throbbing orb of this throng'd world,
The sun-led seasons, the revolving years,
Day with his glory, night with all her stars,
The present, and the future, and the past,
And earth, and heaven, should but a bauble be!
The unvalued gift of an extravagant soul,
Given undemanded, broken by a breath,
The sport of one exorbitant desire,
The easy spoil of one minute mischance,
And all for nothing! What? the unheedful flint
Spares room to house the blossom that requites
A chance seed fallen from a dead bird's cage,
And nothing, nothing, in the long long years,
That bring to other losses soon or late
The loss of loss remember'd, shall arise?
Nothing, not even a penitential tear,
A fleeting sigh, a momentary smile,
The benediction of a passing thought

218

Of pitiful remembrance—to repay
The quite-forgotten gift of too much love! [OMITTED]