“Nor ev’n does love whose fresh and radiant beam Gave added brightness to thy wandering dream, Preserve from bitter touch of ills unknown, But rather brings strange sorrows of its own. Various the ways in which our souls are tried; Love often fails where most our faith relied. Some wayward heart may win, without a thought, That which thine own by sacrifice had bought; May carelessly aside the treasure cast And yet be madly worshipped to the last; Whilst thou forsaken, grieving, left to pine, Vainly may’st claim his plighted faith as thine; Vainly his idol’s charms with thine compare, And know thyself as young, as bright, as fair. Vainly in jealous pangs consume thy day, And waste the sleepless night in tears away; Vainly with forced indulgence strive to smile, In the cold world heart-broken all the while; Or from its glittering and unquiet crowd, Thy brain on fire, thy spirit crushed and bow’d, Creep home unnoticed, there to weep alone, Mock’d by a claim which gives thee not thy own; Which leaves thee bound through all thy blighted youth To him, whose perjured heart hath broke its truth; While the just world beholding thee bereft, Scorns—not his sin—but _thee_, for being left! * * * * * * “Those whom man, not God, hath parted know, A heavier pang, a more enduring woe; No softening memory mingles with _their_ tears, Still the wound rankles on through dreary years, Still the heart feels, in bitterest hours of blame It dares not curse the long familiar name; Still, vainly free, through many a cheerless day, From weaker ties turns helplessly away, Sick for the smile that bless’d its home of yore, The natural joys of life that come no more; And, all bewildered by the abyss, whose gloom Dark and impassible as is the tomb, Lies stretch’d between the future and the past,— Sinks into deep and cold despair at last. Heaven give thee poverty, disease or death, Each varied ill that waits on human breath, Rather than bid thee linger out thy life In the long toil of such unnatural strife. To wander through the world unreconciled, Heart-weary as a spirit-broken child, And think it were an hour of bliss like Heaven If thou could’st die—forgiving and forgiven,— Or with a feverish hope, of anguish born, (Nerving thy mind to feel indignant scorn Of all thy cruel foes who ’twixt thee stand, Holding thy heart-strings with a reckless hand,) Steal to his presence now unseen so long, And claim _his_ mercy who hath dealt the wrong! Within the aching depths of thy poor heart Dive, as it were, even to the roots of pain And wrench up thoughts that tear thy soul apart, And burn like fire through thy bewildered brain. Clothe them in passionate words of wild appeal To teach thy fellow creatures _how_ to feel.— Pray, weep, exhaust thyself in maddening tears,— Recall the hopes, the influences of years,—