COME TO ME, DEAREST.

115

Come to me, Dearest.

‘OME to me, dearest, I'm lonely without thee,

COME

Day-time and night-time, I'm thinking about thee;
Night-time and day-time in dreams I behold thee,

Unwelcome the waking which ceases to fold thee.
Come to me, darling, my sorrows to lighten,
Come in thy beauty to bless and to brighten;
Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly,
Come in thy lovingness, queenly and holy.

Swallows will flit round the desolate ruin,
Telling of spring and its joyous renewing,

And thoughts of thy love, and its manifold treasure,
Are circling my heart with a promise of pleasure.
O, Spring of my spirit, O, May of my bosom,
Shine out on my soul, till it bourgeon and blossom;
The waste of my life has a rose-root within it,
And thy fondness alone to the sunshine can win it.

Figure that moves like a song through the even,
Features lit up by a reflex of heaven;

Eyes like the skies of poor Erin, our mother,
Where shadow and sunshine are chasing each other;
Smiles coming seldom, but child-like and simple,
Planting in each rosy cheek a sweet dimple;—
Oh, thanks to the Saviour, that even thy seeming
Is left to the exile to brighten his dreaming.

You have been glad when you knew I was gladdened;
Dear, are you sad now to hear I am saddened?
Our hearts ever answer in tune and in time, love,
As octave to octave, and rhyme unto rhyme, love:
I cannot weep but your tears will be flowing,
You cannot smile but my cheek will be glowing;
I would not die without you at my side, love,
You will not linger when I shall have died, love.

Come to me, dear, ere I die of my sorrow,

Rise on my gloom like the sun of to-morrow;

Strong, swift, and fond as the words which I speak, love, With a song on your lip and a smile on your cheek, love. Come, for my heart in your absence is weary—

Haste, for my spirit is sickened and dreary—

Come to the arms which alone should caress thee,
Come to the heart that is throbbing to press thee.

JOSEPH BRENNAN.

A Love Letter.

My love-my chosen-but not mine! I send

My whole heart to thee in these words I write;

So let the blotted lines, my soul's sole friend,
Lie upon thine, and there be blest at night.

Irene, I have loved you, as men love

Light, music, odor, beauty, love itself—
Whatever is apart from and above

Those daily needs which deal with dust and pelf.

And I had been content, without one thought
Our guardian angels could have blushed to know,
So to have lived, and died, demanding naught
Save living, dying, to have loved you so.

My wildest wish was vassal to thy will:

My haughtiest hope a pensioner on thy smile,
Which did with light my barren being fill,
As moonlight glorifies some desert isle.

And so I write to you; and write and write,
For the mere sake of writing to you, dear.
What can I tell you, that you know not? Night
Is deepening through the rosy atmosphere,

A LOVE LETTER.

About the lonely casement of this room,

Which you have left familiar with the grace

117

That grows where you have been. And on the gloom I almost fancy I can see your face.

Perchance I shall not ever see again

That face. I know that I shall never see
Its radient beauty as I saw it then,-
Save by this lonely lamp of memory—

With childhood's starry graces lingering yet
In the rosy orient of young womanhood;
And eyes like woodland violets newly wet;
And lips that left their meaning in my blood!

Man cannot make, but may ennoble, fate,
By nobly bearing it. So let us trust
Not to ourselves, but God, and calmly wait

Love's orient out of darkness and of dust.

Farewell, and yet again farewell, and yet
Never farewell-if farewell means to fare
Alone and disunited. Love hath set

Our days in music, to the self-same air;

And I shall feel, wherever we may be,

Even though in absence, and an alien clime, The shadow of the sunniness of thee,

Hovering, in patience, through a clouded time.

Farewell! the dawn is rising, and the light
Is making, in the east, a faint endeavor
To illuminate the mountain peaks. Good-night,
Thine own, and only thine, my love, forever,
OWEN MEREDITH.

Sonnet.

́HENE'ER I recollect the happy time

WE

When you and I held converse, dear, together, There come a thousand thoughts of sunny weather, Of early blossoms and the fresh year's prime : Your memory lives forever in my mind With all the fragrant beauties of the Spring, With odorous lime and silver hawthorn twined, And many a noon-day woodland wandering. There's not a thought of you but brings along Some sunny dream of river, field, and sky; 'Tis wafted on the blackbird's sunset song, Or some wild snatch of ancient melody. And as I date it still, our love arose 'Twixt the last violet and the earliest rose.

FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.

Lines Written in an Album.

As

S o'er the cold sepulchral stone

Some name arrests the passer-by,
So, when thou view'st this page alone,
Let mine attract thy pensive eye;
And when by thee that name is read,
Perchance, in some succeeding year,
Reflect on me as on the dead,

And think my heart is buried here.

LORD BYRON.

LANGLEY LANE.

119

Langley Lane.

N all the land, range up, range down,

IN

Is there ever a place so pleasant and sweet

As Langley Lane in London town,

Just out of the bustle of square and street?
Little white cottages all in a row,
Gardens where bachelors'-buttons grow,

Swallows' nests in roof and wall,

And up above, the still blue sky

Where the woolly white clouds go sailing by,—

I seem to be able to see it all.

For now, in summer, I take my chair,
And sit outside in the sun, and hear
The distant murmur of street and

square,

And the swallows and sparrows chirping near;
And Fanny, who lives just over the way,
Comes running many a time each day

With her little hand's touch so warm and kind;
And I smile and talk, with the sun on my cheek,
And the little live hand seems to stir and speak ;-
For Fanny is dumb and I am blind.

Fanny is sweet thirteen, and she

Has fine black ringlets and dark eyes clear,

And I am older by summers three,

Why should we hold each other so dear?

Because she cannot utter a word,

Nor hear the music of bee or bird,

The water-cart's splash or the milkman's call!

Because I have never seen the sky,

Nor the little singers that hum and fly,

Yet know she is gazing upon them all!