CCXLI.

LOVE'S DESPAIR.

HER LOOK OF LOVE.

SWEET looks !-I thought them love;
Alas! how much mistaken!
A dream a dream will prove,

When time is come to waken.
She was friendly, fair, and kind ;
I was weak of wit, I find.
Hope, adieu ! for now I see
Her look of love, and not for me.

I see within her eyes,

A tender blissful token; Hope drops down and dies,

But no sad word is spoken.

Soon and silent let me go;

She, that knew not, shall not know.

Joy, good-bye!—for now I see
Her look of love, and not for me.

The fault was mine alone,

Who, from her gracious sweetness,
Made fancies all my own

Of heavenly love's completeness,—-
This from me, poor fool! as far
As from the earthworm shines the star.
Dream, farewell !-for now I see

Her look of love, and not for me.

William Allingham.

CCXLII.

LOVE'S DESPAIR.

FOR A DREAM'S SAKE.

THE hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,

A weeping willow in a lake;

I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;

My silent heart, lie still and break;

Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.

Christina Rossetti.

CCXLIII.

LOVE'S DESPAIR.

WHEN I AM DEAD.

WHEN I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree :
Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows;
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain :

And, dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

CCXLIV.

Christina Rossetti.

LOVE'S DESPAIR.

THREE SEASONS.

"A CUP for hope!" she said,

In spring-time ere the bloom was old;
The crimson wine was poor and cold

By her mouth's richer red.

"A cup for love!" how low,

How soft the words; and all the while
Her blush was rippling with a smile,

Like summer after snow.

"A cup for memory!"

Cold cup

that one must drain alone :

While autumn winds are up and moan

Across the barren sea.

Hope, memory, love :

Hope for fair morn, and love for day,

And memory for the evening grey

And solitary dove.

Christina Rossetti.

CCXLV.

LOVE'S DESPAIR.

ON THE RHINE.

VAIN is the effort to forget!

Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moon-lit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go—

But ah, not yet! not yet !

Vain is the agony of grief!

'T is true, indeed, an iron knot

Ties tightly up from mine thy lot,

And were it snapt-thou lov'st me not!

But is despair relief?

Awhile let me with thought be done!

And as this brimmed unwrinkled Rhine,

And that far purple mountain-line,

Lie sweetly in the look divine

Of the slow-sinking sun;

So let me lie, and calm as they

Let beam upon my inward view

Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue-
Eyes too expressive to be blue,

Too lovely to be grey !

Ah quiet, all things feel thy balm !

Those blue hills too, this river's flow,
Were restless once, but long ago.

Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow !

Their joy is in their calm.

Matthew Arnold.

CCXLVI.

LOVE'S DESPAIR.

THE HOME OF LOVE.

WHEN Love was stricken with disgust
At the cold world's unnatural sway,

He shook in scorn the golden dust
From his transparent feet away;

And sought, in pilgrim's weeds, a spot
For penance fit, lone, dark, and bare,
Where even Hope's wan bloom was not;
-He found my heart, and laid him there.

Richard, Lord Houghton.

CCXLVII.

LOVE'S LAST WORDS.

TO KISS AND PART.

SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part,-
Nay I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

N

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And innocence is closing up his eyes,

-Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover! Michael Drayton.

CCXLVIII.

LOVE'S LAST WORDS.

THE BROKEN LINKS.

WELL, the links are broken,
All is past;

This farewell, when spoken,
Is the last.

I have tried and striven
All in vain ;

Such bonds must be riven,
Spite of pain,

And never, never, never
Knit again.

So I tell you plainly,

It must be :

I shall try, not vainly,
To be free;

Truer, happier chances

Wait me yet,

While you, through fresh fancies,
Can forget;-

And life has nobler uses

Than regret.