 | [Poems by Drake in] The life and works of Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) |  |
Abelard to Eloise
Weep on, weep on, we wail the dead—
Now by those humid lids I swear,
For every tear of woe they shed,
My heart shall bleed a drop as dear.
Oh! torture's last convulsive sigh!
Oh! all the pangs that wring the brow
When souls of guilt despairing die,
Were heaven to what I suffer now.
Now by those humid lids I swear,
For every tear of woe they shed,
My heart shall bleed a drop as dear.
Oh! torture's last convulsive sigh!
Oh! all the pangs that wring the brow
When souls of guilt despairing die,
Were heaven to what I suffer now.
247
Nay! look not thus—wert thou but blest,
Erect and calm my soul could bear
To prison in this aching breast
The writhings of its own despair.
The flame that bears my burning brain
Should never force one stifled groan,
So I might take thy load of pain
And bear its weary weight alone.
Erect and calm my soul could bear
To prison in this aching breast
The writhings of its own despair.
The flame that bears my burning brain
Should never force one stifled groan,
So I might take thy load of pain
And bear its weary weight alone.
Yet when on calm and sullen gloom,
Oblivion's waveless stream shall roll,
A sun shall beam beyond the tomb
To light the hope-abandoned soul.
Soon may that orb of peace arise,
That we may seek a purer sphere,
And take that bliss in yonder skies
By man and fate denied us here.
Oblivion's waveless stream shall roll,
A sun shall beam beyond the tomb
To light the hope-abandoned soul.
Soon may that orb of peace arise,
That we may seek a purer sphere,
And take that bliss in yonder skies
By man and fate denied us here.
| [Poems by Drake in] The life and works of Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) | |