University of Virginia Library

OH! SAY YE NOT.

Oh! say ye not—oh! say ye not, that Love, deep Love is vain;
Nay, though he frame the rack, and forge the galling grinding chain;
Though he draw the cloud of frowning gloom o'er the Morning's laughing ray,
And trouble with wild thunder-showers the golden noon of day.
Though from Hope's own rainbow-pictures fair, he the glittering tints efface,
And the saddest shades dim Memory throws, may scatter in their place;
The saddest shades, the gloomiest dyes, for those soft and smiling hues:
Though he thus may bid o'erclouded life, its brightest radiance lose;
Dry up the fountains of delight, till not a drop remains,
And for a thousand pleasures, bring a thousand torturing pains;
Wither the glorious flowers of life, yet in their opening bloom—
And choke the very pathways, e'en the pathways to the tomb,
With their scattered leaves of beauty fallen, with their buds and blossoms soiled,
Their bloom, their grace evanished, their roseate pride despoiled:
Though he beguile the unwatchful heart with treacherous craft and stealth,
And take from the smooth cheek of youth, the hues of hope and health;—
Yet, say ye not—oh! say ye not, that Love, deep Love is vain,
Though haply this he oft hath done, and oft shall do again!
Though he split the heart's light pleasure-barks, with many a startling shock;
Founder the mind's rich argosies on many a hidden rock;
And drift their garnered treasures far, on a wild and wandering wave,
Or bury them in some dark hold—some lone and lampless grave:
Though he pour in Life's deep chalice oft, black drops of venomed woe,
That turn its draught to bitterness, and taint its healthful flow;
Though he brings, full oft, a banded host of wild and phantom things,
Fiend-like, to try the very heart, with their scourgings and their stings;
Fierce jealousies, and maddening doubts, and racking, withering cares,
That hide within the human breast, like serpents in their lairs;—
Despite this shadowy retinue—despite this phantom train—
Oh! say ye not—oh! say ye not, that Love, deep Love is vain!
No! 't is blindfolded and trammelled he so wildly, darkly works,
And bounds on many an ambushed snake that in his pathway lurks;
Whose angry venom in his veins, all fearfully ferments,
And turns his loveliest thoughts and dreams to harsh and dire intents.
Oh! 't is maddened and bewildered so, and 't is cheated and misled,
With many a mesh about him cast, and mist around him spread;
Oh! 't is harshly thwarted and constrained, and 't is baffled and o'erborne,
Haply, by dark, untoward chance, by change, and wrong, and scorn:
That thus he leads a fiery host, to endanger and to alarm,
And wears full many a fearful guise of evil and of harm;
Till a cherub-Proteus he should seem, with a thousand thousand forms,
Like the ever-changeful rainbows of the Summer's fitful storms.
But the likeness of the Morning Star, on his fair front still he bears,
Glimmering through many a darkening cloud, and vapoury mist of tears;
Betraying his bright presence so, and his nature pure and high—
His sphery Nature,—for, in sooth, his birthplace is you Sky;
His birthplace is yon Orient Sky—and there too is his home,
And thither shall he fly, when free from Earth's entangling doom:
Lo! in the narrowness and chill of Mortality's frail hour,
How glorious is his living might, how wondrous is his power!
His playthings are the thunderbolts; like the young Olympian Jove,
He grasps them in his rosy hands—the child-like, blooming Love!
His playthings are the thunderbolts, and his play-fellows the Fates—
The rushing winds of Heaven his steeds, and the Stars of Heaven his mates.
Though his speed may match the lightning's flash, yet he perisheth not so;—
Immortal as those starry lights, is his deep, unfading glow;—
While midst the many ills and griefs, that recklessly he brings,
He wafts pure, priceless blessings on his sweeping, viewless wings.
And he bears up, with a mighty strength, the frail and fragile frame,
In the daring of Affection's truth—on, on through flood or flame:
Oh! say ye not—then say ye not, that Love, deep Love is vain!
Worship and worshippers not thus contemn with false disdain.
Though in sooth, in this cold world, this drear, and tristful world of ours,
Shorn are his brightest, loveliest rays, and chained his noblest powers;
And the bosomed secret of his strength, the source of his great might,
In Heaven shall be revealed alone, in characters of Light.
Yet something of that Heaven belongs, even here, to his wide reign:
Tell me not, then—oh! tell me not, that Love, deep Love is vain!