University of Virginia Library

LINES FROM A MS. POEM.

The World without—the World within was gloom:
She sank o'ermastered by that stroke of doom—
The World without! There was no World without;
Its change, its busy noise, its stirring rout
Were passed away from that lorn, wretched one.
Creation vanished—she was left alone.
The World without!—Ah, that indeed was nought,
It lived not to her sense, nor to her thought;
Its busy strife and noise disturbed her not,
It was too utterly and all forgot.
The World without!—for her 'twas past, 'twas done;
Aye, 'twas but as a something changed or gone;
Between a shadow and a substance then.
But oh, the heart's re-action, when again
It plunges in the world of beings, shorn
Of its best hopes, still lonely, still forlorn!
For it doth plunge again—so much the worse;
There, there is sorrow's bitterness and curse.
Then break the waves in fury, fierce, and dread,
Once more about the shipwrecked sufferer's head.
Around the barren rock of his repose,
Like ruthless murderers and hungry foes,—
As they erewhile, around his bark of pride,
Then round its wreck rolled roaring far and wide.
The first deep hour of a profound despair,
Perchance is easier to the heart to bear
Than those slow hours, more conscious and more calm,
Which bring, alas! no comfort and no balm;
But teach the heart, by hateful dull degrees
(Which scarce at first the whole dark truth can seize,)
All that it hath to suffer and endure,
Yet proffer nought of counsel nor of cure.
Time may at length our comforter become;
But first he helps to strike the stern blow home;
And spreads unpityingly, e'en part by part,
The map of its despair before the heart.
First doth he wake and rouse the half-stunn'd mind,
And to the highest pitch its powers upwind—
Its powers of passionate suffering—then, but not
Till then, may he improve our darkened lot!