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[First published 1852.]
YES, now the longing is o’erpast, | |
| Which, dogg’d by fear and fought by shame, | |
| Shook her weak bosom day and night, | |
| Consum’d her beauty like a flame, | |
| And dimm’d it like the desert blast. | 5 |
| And though the curtains hide her face, | |
| Yet were it lifted to the light | |
| The sweet expression of her brow | |
| Would charm the gazer, till his thought | |
| Eras’d the ravages of time, | 10 |
| Fill’d up the hollow cheek, and brought | |
| A freshness back as of her prime— | |
| So healing is her quiet now. | |
| So perfectly the lines express | |
| A placid, settled loveliness; | 15 |
| Her youngest rival’s freshest grace. | |
| |
| But 1 ah, though peace indeed is here, 2 | |
| And ease from shame, and rest from fear; | |
| Though 3 nothing can dismarble now | |
| The smoothness of that limpid brow; | 20 |
| Yet 4 is a calm like this, in truth, | |
| The crowning end of life and youth? | |
| And when this boon rewards the dead, | |
| Are all debts paid, has all been said? | |
| And is the heart of youth so light, | 25 |
| Its step so firm, its eye so bright, | |
| Because on its hot brow there blows | |
| A wind of promise and repose | |
| From the far grave, to which it goes? | |
| Because it has the hope to come, | 30 |
| One day, to harbour in the tomb? | |
| Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one | |
| For daylight, for the cheerful sun, | |
| For feeling nerves and living breath— | |
| Youth dreams a bliss on this side death. | 35 |
| It dreams a rest, if not more deep, | |
| More grateful than this marble sleep. | |
| It hears a voice within it tell— | |
| ‘Calm ’s not life’s crown, though calm is well.’ | |
| ’Tis all perhaps which man acquires: | 40 |
| But ’tis not what our youth desires. | |
