Dramatic Scenes With Other Poems, Now First Printed. By Barry Cornwall [i.e. Bryan Waller Procter]. Illustrated |
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 | Dramatic Scenes |  |
A QUESTION ANSWERED.
“Why do you love?”
“You ask me why?
'Tis for a look, a smile, a sigh;
A little look that no one notes,
A little sigh that hither floats,
And alights upon a tender heart.
Never felt I pang or smart
From that soft melodious thrilling,
That so stealeth round and round
My bosom: Not a single sound,
Harsher than a wood-dove's billing,
Wakes me from the dreams that creep
Thorough all my golden sleep.
Half asleep, half awake,
In the slumberous joy I slake
Thirst for knowledge, thirst for power;
Yielding, like a bending flower,
To the influence of the hour.
—Wherefore ask me why I love?
There are reasons here,—above
All your mathematic reckoning,
Smiles and looks (I told you) beckoning
Me from every old annoy,
Into the summer land of joy.
I leave behind the storm, the strife:
I bear with me the sun of life:
Imagination's wealth is mine:
The human has become divine:
I bask upon a faery shore:
I love: I am happy. Well!—what more?”
'Tis for a look, a smile, a sigh;
A little look that no one notes,
A little sigh that hither floats,
And alights upon a tender heart.
Never felt I pang or smart
From that soft melodious thrilling,
That so stealeth round and round
My bosom: Not a single sound,
Harsher than a wood-dove's billing,
Wakes me from the dreams that creep
Thorough all my golden sleep.
Half asleep, half awake,
In the slumberous joy I slake
Thirst for knowledge, thirst for power;
Yielding, like a bending flower,
To the influence of the hour.
—Wherefore ask me why I love?
There are reasons here,—above
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Smiles and looks (I told you) beckoning
Me from every old annoy,
Into the summer land of joy.
I leave behind the storm, the strife:
I bear with me the sun of life:
Imagination's wealth is mine:
The human has become divine:
I bask upon a faery shore:
I love: I am happy. Well!—what more?”
| Dramatic Scenes | |