XI.

· On Parting.

1.

THE kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left,

Shall never part from mine,

Till happier hours restore the gift

Untainted back to thine.

VOL. IV.

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2.

Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,

An equal love may see:

The tear that from thine eyelid streams

Can weep no change in me.

3.

I ask no pledge to make me blest

In gazing when alone;

Nor one memorial for a breast,

Whose thoughts are all thine own.

4.

Nor need I write to tell the tale
My pen were doubly weak:

Oh! what can idle words avail,

Unless the heart could speak?

5.

By day or night, in weal or woe,

That heart, no longer free,

Must bear the love it cannot show,

And silent ache for thee.

XII.

TO THYRZA.

WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot,

And say, what Truth might well have said,

By all, save one, perchance forgot,

Ah, wherefore art thou lowly laid?

By many a shore and many a sea

Divided, yet beloved in vain;

The past, the future fled to thee

To bid us meet-no-ne'er again!

Could this have been-a word, a look
That softly said, "We part in peace,"
Had taught my bosom how to brook,
With fainter sighs, thy soul's release.
And didst thou not, since Death for thee
Prepared a light and pangless dart,

Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see,
Who held, and holds thee in his heart?
Oh! who like him had watched thee here?
Or sadly marked thy glazing eye,
In that dread hour ere death appear,
When silent Sorrow fears to sigh,
Till all was past? But when no more
"Twas thine to reck of human woe,
Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er,

Had flowed as fast-as now they flow.