Semele
No praise to me!
My joy ’twas to be nothing but the glass
Thro’ which the general boon of Heaven should pass,
To focus upon thee.
Nor is’t thy blame
Thou first should’st glow, and, after, fade i’ the flame.
It takes more might
Than God has given thee, Dear, so long to feel delight.
Shall I, alas,
Reproach thee with thy change and my regret?
Blind fumblers that we be
About the portals of felicity!
The wind of words would scatter, tears would wash
Quite out the little heat
Beneath the silent and chill-seeming ash,
Perchance, still slumbering sweet.
Notes
29 In this year the middle and upper classes were disfranchised by Mr. Disraeli’s Government, and the final
destruction of the liberties of England by the Act of 1884 rendered inevitable.
35 The Alabama Treaty.
62 This Piece was written in the year 1874, soon after the publication of an incendiary pamphlet by Mr. Gladstone against the English Catholics, occasioned by the Vatican Council.