Part 21

I do not fear thy love will fail; Thy faith is true, I know; But, oh, my love! thy strength is frail For such a life of woe.

Were 't not for this, I well could trace (Though banished long from thee) Life's rugged path, and boldly face The storms that threaten me.

Fear not for me--I've steeled my mind Sorrow and strife to greet; Joy with my love I leave behind, Care with my friends I meet.

A mother's sad reproachful eye, A father's scowling brow-- But he may frown and she may sigh: I will not break my vow!

I love my mother, I revere My sire, but fear not me-- Believe that Death alone can tear This faithful heart from thee.

IF THIS BE ALL.

O God! if this indeed be all That Life can show to me; If on my aching brow may fall No freshening dew from Thee;

If with no brighter light than this The lamp of hope may glow, And I may only dream of bliss, And wake to weary woe;

If friendship's solace must decay, When other joys are gone, And love must keep so far away, While I go wandering on,--

Wandering and toiling without gain, The slave of others' will, With constant care, and frequent pain, Despised, forgotten still;

Grieving to look on vice and sin, Yet powerless to quell The silent current from within, The outward torrent's swell

While all the good I would impart, The feelings I would share, Are driven backward to my heart, And turned to wormwood there;

If clouds must EVER keep from sight The glories of the Sun, And I must suffer Winter's blight, Ere Summer is begun;

If Life must be so full of care, Then call me soon to thee; Or give me strength enough to bear My load of misery.

MEMORY.

Brightly the sun of summer shone Green fields and waving woods upon, And soft winds wandered by; Above, a sky of purest blue, Around, bright flowers of loveliest hue, Allured the gazer's eye.

But what were all these charms to me, When one sweet breath of memory Came gently wafting by? I closed my eyes against the day, And called my willing soul away, From earth, and air, and sky;

That I might simply fancy there One little flower--a primrose fair, Just opening into sight; As in the days of infancy, An opening primrose seemed to me A source of strange delight.

Sweet Memory! ever smile on me; Nature's chief beauties spring from thee; Oh, still thy tribute bring Still make the golden crocus shine Among the flowers the most divine, The glory of the spring.

Still in the wallflower's fragrance dwell; And hover round the slight bluebell, My childhood's darling flower. Smile on the little daisy still, The buttercup's bright goblet fill With all thy former power.

For ever hang thy dreamy spell Round mountain star and heather bell, And do not pass away From sparkling frost, or wreathed snow, And whisper when the wild winds blow, Or rippling waters play.

Is childhood, then, so all divine? Or Memory, is the glory thine, That haloes thus the past? Not ALL divine; its pangs of grief (Although, perchance, their stay be brief) Are bitter while they last.

Nor is the glory all thine own, For on our earliest joys alone That holy light is cast. With such a ray, no spell of thine Can make our later pleasures shine, Though long ago they passed.

TO COWPER.

Sweet are thy strains, celestial Bard; And oft, in childhood's years, I've read them o'er and o'er again, With floods of silent tears.

The language of my inmost heart I traced in every line; MY sins, MY sorrows, hopes, and fears, Were there-and only mine.

All for myself the sigh would swell, The tear of anguish start; I little knew what wilder woe Had filled the Poet's heart.

I did not know the nights of gloom, The days of misery; The long, long years of dark despair, That crushed and tortured thee.