THESE dreary hours of hopeless gloom Are all of life I fain would know; I would but feel my life consume, While bring they back mine ancient woe; For, midst the clouds of grief and shame That crowd around, one face I see; It is the face I dare not name, The face none ever name to me. I saw it first when in the dance Borne, like a falcon, down the hall, He stay'd to cure some rude mischance My girlish deeds had caused to fall; He smil'd, he danced with me, he made A thousand ways to soothe my pain; And sleeplessly all night I pray'd That I might see that smile again. I saw it next, a thousand times; And every time its kind smile near'd; Oh! twice ten thousand glorious chimes My heart rang out, when he appear'd; What was I then, that others' thought Could alter so my thought of him; That I could be by others taught His image from my heart to dim! I saw it last, when black and white Shadows went struggling o'er it wild; When he regain'd my long-lost sight, And I with cold obeisance smil'd; -- I did not see it fade from life; My letters o'er his heart they found; They told me in death's last hard strife His dying hands around them wound. Although my scorn that face did maim, Even when its love would not depart; Although my laughter smote its shame And drave it swording through his heart; Although its death-gloom grasps my brain With crushing unrefus'd despair; That I may dream that face again God still must find alone my prayer. |