Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Lament

Denis Florence Mac Carthy (1817–1882)

YOUTH’S bright palace

Is overthrown,

With its diamond sceptre

And golden throne;

As a time-worn stone

Its turrets are humbled—

All hath crumbled

But grief alone!

Whither, O whither

Have fled away

The dreams and hopes

Of my early day?

Ruin’d and grey

Are the towers I builded;

And the beams that gilded—

Ah, where are they?

Once this world

Was fresh and bright,

With its golden noon

And its starry night:

Glad and light,

By mountain and river,

Have I bless’d the Giver

With hush’d delight.

Youth’s illusions

One by one

Have pass’d like clouds

That the sun look’d on.

While morning shone,

How purple their fringes!

How ashy their tinges

When that was gone!

As fire-flies fade

When the nights are damp—

As meteors are quench’d

In a stagnant swamp—

Thus Charlemagne’s camp

Where the Paladins rally,

And the Diamond valley,

And the Wonderful Lamp,

And all the wonders

Of Ganges and Nile,

And Haroun’s rambles,

And Crusoe’s isle,

And Princes who smile

On the Genii’s daughters

’Neath the Orient waters

Full many a mile,

And all that the pen

Of Fancy can write

Must vanish in manhood’s

Misty light;

Squire and Knight,

And damosel’s glances,

Sunny romances,

So pure and bright!

These have vanish’d,

And what remains?

Life’s budding garlands

Have turn’d to chains—

Its beams and rains

Feed but docks and thistles,

And sorrow whistles

O’er desert plains.