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121
THE PRISONERS OF HOPE.
Dry, gasping lips, that still are dumb,Nor speak the words within them lie,—
And crude and wayward thoughts, that come
Up to the birth, and mocking die,—
Strong consciousness of self, and yet
Wild plungings thro' the deeps below
To seek self-knowledge, which but fret
Still more the fruitless itch to know;—
And oft a faint and twilight time
When the dull whirling round of things
Distracts, and o'er the mental prime
Lethargic dimness creeps, while sings
The one fierce thought that lurks behind—
‘How stagnant all thy spirit is!
When shall it feel the freshening wind?’
This is their life, and such as this
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And Love is hid—or if he dare
In happier mood to leave his cell,
Some face with fixt reproachful stare
Doth freeze him back to self again:
And Friendship is an after-bloom,
A voice that speaks too late, in vain,
When mute response can only come
From palsied lip and speechless eye:
‘Oh that some woman's heart might prove
For us’—their thoughtless yearnings sigh—
‘The sweets without the sin of Love!
Oh that some gentler sympathy
And more profound than man's, might bring
Our mateless thoughts at home to be
Under the shadow of its wing!’
But Woman knows no middle state
Betwixt the stranger and the wife,—
She moves with swift and conscious gait
From coldness to the partner-life
That Passion breeds; and all unseen
Meanwhile, the fruitful fallow lies
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Alas, what tender harmonies
And strengthening converse might have grown
Where Fashion's senseless dribblings fall
And case the listening heart in stone!
Thus these strange hopes are vain, and all
Have bourgeon'd to ungenial air—
Some heart too young, too blithe, too crude
To read aright, or reading, share
Each riper phase of thought and mood
That lies beyond it or above:—
They shrink into themselves, to deem
That Friendship with the face of Love
Is but the angel of a dream,
Whereby no godlike charm is rife
(As thro' that statue moved of old)
To crown the dumb idea with life,
And 'neath a kindred guise enfold
Within their longing arms the joys of yore—
Which in their own sweet name 'tis theirs to feel no more.
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