 | Maiden Ecstasy |  |
61
THE HEART-BROKEN.
I
Whom hath the missile slain?While one is pierced, another, far remote,
Presses her heart: the sudden pain
Her bosom too hath smote.
He on the battle-field in other lands,
She in the hope and sunshine of her day
Basking in love, death-stricken stands,
And both are swept away.
II
Her cheeks, rose-red and white,The colour leaves them never to return
From when she felt his death-blow smite
And in her bosom burn.
62
She dares not stir, she feels her blood is shed;
So dies she as her lover dies,
Although she fall not dead.
III
She stayeth still below:Must she within death's narrowing grasp survive
As long as blood is left to flow?
She seemeth still alive;
The slow dull pang awarded as her lot!
He sleeps, she hath her bosom only cleft;
He is in death and suffers not;
To her the world is left.
IV
Twin hearts, o'er one aloneDeath had no power, so bore a twofold curse
That, on his heart the ravage done,
The weapon sought for hers.
One tomb, although for one the other wait:
Her heart, there, bleeding on the shadowy wall
She pants to pass the half-open gate
And on the dead to fall.
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V
The sunset's yellow stainIs on her now, lest pale as death she grow;
Her beauty left to slowly wane
In that memorial glow.
With lips that shiver through the sultry days,
Death came and spoke to her ere winter-time,
And stabbed her with his frozen rays
And slew her in her prime.
VI
Cold is she in the gustWhose vulture-swoop whirls o'er her lover's mound;
That blows about the autumnal dust;
That has a pausing sound;
And she can trace it from its furthest bourne
To where it stops, and where the dust it lays;
Yet does it journey but to mourn
While at her heart it stays.
VII
The world's so busy stirIs like a past; the sound of wedding-bells
Has some lost meaning, and to her
Of former being tells,
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Distant as now the soul from infant thought,
Whence shadows of old feeling come
And pass away as nought.
VIII
Yet whence the flash of painThat in its quiet doth her bosom wring?
'Neath where her hand is pressed again
Death turns about his sting.
She holds her breath, watches her agonies
Dragging her back into her first despair,
To learn it is the loved one dies,
And she the pang must bear.
IX
Death, faithless to the dead,Shines on her, with her living beauty toys;
His ghastly halo, o'er her spread,
Her golden hair alloys.
Her cheeks seem in an open sepulchre;
Her eyes are dulled, her lips, that wordless move,
The worm unseen appears to stir:
Yet what a face has love!
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X
A year is gone at last:On the new morrow she awakes so gay
That surely she forgets the past?
Even thinks not of the day!
What means it that her eyes in lustre range
An empty world, and, void of memory,
Into a bridal beauty change
Some blissful path to spy?
XI
Perchance, the love of oldBrings back its hour, and her expanded soul
Doth in its former light unfold?
Her broken heart seems whole!
But soon, as though a sudden thought had whirred,
She listens, 'tis the warning to depart:
With a light death-moan only heard,
Her hand falls from her heart.
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