THE WANDERER: 2. IN FRANCE: COMPENSATION by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON

WHEN the days are silent all
Till the drear light falls;
And the nights pass with the pall
Of Love's funerals;
When the heart is weighed with years;
And the eyes too weak for tears;
And life like death appears;

Is it nought, O soul of mine,
To hear i' the windy track
A voice with a song divine
Calling thy footsteps back
To the land thou lovest best,
Toward the Garden in the West
Where thou hast once been blest?

Is it nought, O aching brow,
To feel in the dark hour,
Which came, though called, so slow,
And, though loathed, yet lingers slower,
A hand upon thy pain,
Lovingly laid again,
Smoothing the ruffled brain?

O love, my own and only!
The seraphs shall not see
By my looks that life was lonely;
But that 't was blest by thee.
If few lives have been more lone,
Few have more rapture known,
Than mine and thine, my own!

When the lamp burns dim and dimmner;
And the curtain close is drawn;
And the twilight seems to glimmer
With a supernatural dawn;
And the Genius at the door
Turns the torch down to the floor,
Till the world is seen no more;

In the doubt, the dark, the fear,
'Mid the spirits come to take thee,
Shall mine to thine be near,
And my kiss the first to wake thee.
Meanwhile, in life's December,
On the wind that strews the ember,
Shall a voice still moan..."Remember!"

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...