Queen Berengaria's Courtesy, and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

How pass the unloving and the unloved,
Whose hearts no Heav'n-born thrill have proved,
Through this dark waste, this World unkind,
Where poisons tempt and fetters bind,
Where storms are scathing—snakes are stinging,
And woes on woes the heart are wringing.

How pass they, without prop or aid,
With burthens on their shoulders laid,
With dangerous passes to attempt,
Nor from attack and wrong exempt—
Without Love's aid and blest protection?—
Oh! surely crushed with vain dejection.

Heed, heed not what the selfish say,
“Love rules with harsh and fearful sway,
Preserve from Love the throbbing heart,
And 'twill be saved from Sorrow's smart!”
Aye! 'twill be saved from every feeling,
Whose Heavenly hurt wins Heavenly healing.

For true it is that Happiness
Not alway doth deep Feeling bless,
But Oh! is not its precious tear
Than Happiness itself more dear?
And when bright joy its truth is blessing,
That joy exceedeth all expressing!

Its very sorrows even are dear—
And beautiful and fair appear—
Since consolations from above
Ever are lent to wounded Love!
Oh! the fond Martyrs of Affection,
Walk not this Earth in vain dejection.

But they, the unloving and the unloved,
Whose hearts no generous thrills have proved,
While they have sorrows too to bear,
No Heavenly healing to their share
May fall, those sorrows' pangs to soften,
Though they shall own their keenness often!

The sorrows of the selfish breast
Are unexalted and unblest—
And could the loveless guess or know
The solace of a nobler woe—
The joy-commingled griefs of Feeling,
Would they not pine with vain appealing?

Would they not crave of Heaven alone
To wake their Souls to that fine tone
Of more than richest harmony,
Which thrilleth and which swelleth free—
That tone of tenderness enthralling,
Like echoes of Heaven's music falling?

Would they not envy all who know
Deep Sympathy's mysterious glow,
And scorn their own low little joys,
Vain dreams which every breath destroys,
And turn with fond and deep desiring,
To Love and to Love's truth aspiring?

Oh! surely it must ev'n thus be,
Could they pierce thy sweet mystery,
Affection!—bright and gentle power!
Life's precious and ætherial flower!
But of such power—the Soul commanding,
They have in sooth no understanding!

Still must they feel some consciousness,
Some trouble of a vain distress,
When they, the adoring and the adored,
Whose Souls on one rich hope are poured,
Meet them amidst Life's mazy turnings,
Till ache their hearts with hopeless yearnings.

Oh! be those hearts of stone or steel,
The unloving and the unloved must feel,
Must mourn their state, yet undeplored,
When thus the adoring and the adored,
With Love's own perfect sunlight beaming,
Cross them on paths of their vain scheming.

The loved upon the loveless look—
And scarce can read their hearts' dim book,
Yet what they can decypher there,
Must claim some pity, some kind care,
For, Oh! to the beloved how dreary
Must seem the unloved one's paths, how weary!

And let them not with harsh disdain
Shrink from those sufferings—from that pain—
Which pierce the hearts no hope may bless,
At sight of others' happiness!—
No! be Love's Heaven-taught lore imparted
Unto the lone and heavy-hearted!