Part 107

Thomas Moore [1779-1852]

"NOT OURS THE VOWS"

Not ours the vows of such as plight Their troth in sunny weather, While leaves are green, and skies are bright, To walk on flowers together.

But we have loved as those who tread The thorny path of sorrow, With clouds above, and cause to dread Yet deeper gloom to-morrow.

That thorny path, those stormy skies, Have drawn our spirits nearer; And rendered us, by sorrow's ties, Each to the other dearer.

Love, born in hours of joy and mirth, With mirth and joy may perish; That to which darker hours gave birth Still more and more we cherish.

It looks beyond the clouds of time, And through death's shadowy portal; Made by adversity sublime, By faith and hope immortal.

Bernard Barton [1784-1849]

THE GRAVE OF LOVE

I dug, beneath the cypress shade, What well might seem an elfin's grave; And every pledge in earth I laid, That erst thy false affection gave.

I pressed them down the sod beneath; I placed one mossy stone above; And twined the rose's fading wreath Around the sepulcher of love.

Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead Ere yet the evening sun was set: But years shall see the cypress spread, Immutable as my regret.

Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866]

"WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING"

So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

SONG

Sing the old song, amid the sounds dispersing That burden treasured in your hearts too long; Sing it, with voice low-breathed, but never name her: She will not hear you, in her turrets nursing High thoughts, too high to mate with mortal song - Bend o'er her, gentle Heaven, but do not claim her!

In twilight caves, and secret lonelinesses, She shades the bloom of her unearthly days; And the soft winds alone have power to woo her: Far off we catch the dark gleam of her tresses; And wild birds haunt the wood-walks where she strays, Intelligible music warbling to her.

That Spirit charged to follow and defend her, - He also, doubtless, suffers this love-pain; And she, perhaps, is sad, hearing his sighing: And yet that face is not so sad as tender; Like some sweet singer's, when her sweetest strain From the heaved heart is gradually dying!

Aubrey Thomas De Vere [1814-1902]

THE QUESTION

I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring; And gentle odors led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets; Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets - Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth - Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-colored may, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray; And flowers, azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.