Madeline :: :: University of Virginia Library

O favoured man, with glance above,
To thee the heavens are bared;
They hold an atmosphere of love
By every being shared.
Then is he poor, is he alone
To whom all heaven is nude?
He lives within a holy zone,
Though else a solitude.

Friends whom one half the globe divides,
With seas upon its face,
Feel what a balm between them glides
To warm the old embrace.
Their newer griefs they still compare;
Mourn for each other's sake;
Borne down with burdens of self-care,
Each other's load partake.

But love thus pure scarce feels its might
The tempest to engage:
An ocean's roll, a meteor's flight,
The passion in its rage.

206

Turn to the rapture of the sun,
And read the lover's dream:
There has the orb in heaven begun
To wear a redder beam.

A torrid orb is on its way,
And, kindled in its glow,
Two souls burst into mutual day;
Each other's passion know.
Fear holds them back, enchanted fear;
Invisible its arm.
A soft impulsion draws them near,
But impotent its charm.

In sorrow's melancholy stare
A fever slowly burns,
The eye emits a poisonous glare,
Its gaze to phrensy turns.
Meantime what clinging hopes sustain
The lashing of the tides,
And in their tender shells remain
Unhurt till it subsides!

207

EPODE.

And is not love a boon to all alike,
Be it of stranger or of kith and kin?
When fail the clinging roots to burst and strike
Or draw the nurture to the heart within?

Though man desert, though want the exile face,
Some tender spirit stands in stead between;
In times of worst disaster and disgrace
There is a nest yet warm where love has been.