Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By IX Poems (1840). IV. Heart’s-Ease

Caroline Clive (1801–1873)

OH heart-ease, dost thou lie within that flower?

How shall I draw thee thence?—so much I need

The healing aid of thine enshrined power

To veil the past, and bid the time good speed!

I gather it—It withers on my breast;

The heart’s-ease dies when it is laid to mine;

Methinks there is no shape by joy possess’d

Would better fare than thou upon that shrine.

Take from me things gone by—oh! change the past—

Renew the lost—restore me the decay’d;—

Bring back the days whose tide has ebb’d so fast—

Give form again to the fantastic shade!

My hope, that never grew to certainty,—

My youth, that perish’d in its vain desire,—

My fond ambition, crush’d ere it could be

Aught save a self-consuming, wasted fire;

Bring these anew, and set me once again

In the delusion of life’s infancy—

I was not happy, but I knew not then

That happy I was never doom’d to be.

Till these things are, and pow’rs divine descend,—

Love, kindness, joy, and hope to gild my day,—

In vain the emblem leaves towards me bend;

Thy spirit, Heart-Ease, is too far away!