Farewell to Love
I had a heart that doated once in passion’s boundless pain,
And though the tyrant I abjured, I could not break his chain;
But now that Fancy’s fire is quenched, and ne’er can burn anew,
I’ve bid to Love, for all my life, adieu! adieu! adieu!
I’ve known, if ever mortal knew, the spells of Beauty’s thrall,
And if my song has told them not, my soul has felt them all;
But Passion robs my peace no more, and Beauty’s witching sway
Is now to me a star that’s fall’n—a dream that’s passed away.
Hail! welcome tide of life, when no tumultuous billows roll,
How wondrous to myself appears this halcyon calm of soul!
The wearied bird blown o’er the deep would sooner quit its shore,
Than I would cross the gulf again that time has brought me o’er.
Why say the Angels feel the flame?—Oh, spirits of the skies!
Can love like ours, that doats on dust, in heavenly bosoms rise?—
Ah no; the hearts that best have felt its power, the best can tell,
That peace on earth itself begins, when Love has bid farewell.
LINES
ON A PICTURE OF A GIRL IN THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER, BY THE ARTIST GRUSE, IN THE POSSESSION OF LADY STEPNEY.
Was man e’er doomed that beauty made
By mimic art should haunt him?
Like Orpheus, I adore a shade,
And doat upon a phantom.
Thou maid that in my inmost thought
Art fancifully sainted,
Why liv’st thou not—why art thou nought
But canvass sweetly painted?
Whose looks seem lifted to the skies,
Too pure for love of mortals—
As if they drew angelic eyes
To greet thee at heaven’s portals.
Yet loveliness has here no grace,
Abstracted or ideal—
Art ne’er but from a living face
Drew looks so seeming real.
What wert thou, maid?—thy life—thy name
Oblivion hides in mystery;
Though from thy face my heart could frame
A long romantic history.
Transported to thy time I seem,
Though dust thy coffin covers—
And hear the songs, in fancy’s dream,
Of thy devoted lovers.
How witching must have been thy breath—
How sweet the living charmer—
Whose very semblance after death
Can make the heart grow warmer!
Adieu, the charms that vainly move
My soul in their possession—
That prompt my lips to speak of love,
Yet rob them of expression.
Yet thee, dear picture, to have praised
Was but a poet’s duty;
And shame to him that ever gazed
Impassive on thy beauty.