YOU ASK ME FOR A PLEDGE, LOVE.
Follow us in the strife,
Guard 'mid the throng of life,
With each temptation fresh succour to bring;
Closer and closer press,
Innocence needs ye less;
When was the streamlet as pure as the spring?
Not with the set of sun
Labours of love are done;
Angels! a night-watch to you hath been given;
Slumber give not your eyes,
Till the glad morn arise,
And your whole flock is safe folded in heaven!
YOU ASK ME FOR A PLEDGE, LOVE.
You ask me for a pledge, love, but gaze upon my cheek,
And let its hue, when thou art near, my heart's devotion
speak;
Look on my dim and tearful eye, my pale and rigid brow,
List to my deep, unbidden sigh,—what need of pledge or vow?
You ask me for a pledge, love, some token of my truth; Take then this flower, an emblem meet of woman's blighted youth;
The perfume of its withered leaves, triumphant o'er decay, May whisper of my changeless love when I have passed away!
What, yet another pledge, love; then mark me while I vow,
By all this heart hath borne for thee, by all it suffers now;
In grief or gladness, hope, despair, in bliss or misery,
I'll be, what I have ever been-to thee, to only thee!
My native vale, my native vale!
How many a chequered year hath fled,
How many a vision, bright and frail,
My youth's aspiring hopes have fed,
Since last thy beauties met mine eye,
Upon as sweet an eve as this,
And each soft breeze that wandered by,
Whispered of love, repose, and bliss:
I deemed not then a ruder gale,
Would sweep me soon from Malhamdale !
Who may the Poet's thoughts unfold
Ere yet he pours his soul in song,-
When hopes, all glowing but untold,
And passions, numberless and strong,
Are pent within his youthful breast,
Or murmured but in secret sighs;
Till Love, the fondliest cherished guest,
His fettered tongue at length unties,
And bids as wild a strain prevail
As once I breathed in Malhamdale.
And she, who listened to my lays,
With downcast eye and blushing cheek, Her smiles were as the sunny rays
That bade the lips of Memnon speak; Till all the feelings, wild and warm,
My swelling heart had nursed so long, Yielding to that all-powerful charm,
Burst forth in one full tide of song; Alas, that dreams so fair should fail; We met no more in Malhamdale!
Ay, they whose fondness made thee seem
A paradise on earth to me;
The one bright star whose tender beam
Shed light upon my destiny;
The kindly sympathies of love,
The old familiar forms, are flown, And, sered in heart, 'tis mine to rove This cold and desert world alone:
I, only I am left to wail
O'er the lost joys of Malhamdale!
When toiling, 'neath a foreign sky,
For wealth that none are left to share,
How oft would Memory's wistful eye,
Revert to scenes and hours more fair;
The village church, my cottage-home,
With all its clustering woodbines gay,
The glades through which I loved to roam,
In years that seemed but yesterday,
Flashed on my soul, and told a tale
Of youth, and hope, and Malhamdale.
I never closed my wearied eye
But visions sweet as these were mine,
Nor offered up a prayer on high
That did not breathe of thee and thine:
In dreams by night, in dreams by day,
In hours of gloom or revelry,
Sweet scenes of youth's enchanted May,
My thoughts were still of thine and thee! What now can Memory's light avail:What now to me is Malhamdale!
And what am I? An exile pale,
With wasted form and withered heart,
Transplanted to his native vale,
To droop awhile, and then depart;
To think of all that might have been,
Of joys, that gold could never buy; Just wander o'er each long-loved scene, Then seek me out a grave and die; Sleep with no stone to tell my tale— By her I loved, in Malhamdale.
My native vale-my native vale!
Even as I mark thy shadows change,
Sweet strains seem breathing on the gale,
I feel a thrilling new and strange;
A radiant form is rising now,
How fair, upon my waning sight;
I know her by her starlike brow,
Her loving eyes so blue and bright;
She beckons me, life's pulses fail;
Adieu, adieu, my native vale!
TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE BARRET. 145
TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE BARRET.
"One morn I missed him on th' accustomed hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came, nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he!"
WORTHY the disciple of his art divine,
Whose golden sunsets, rich romantic shores,
And pastoral vales, reflect fair Nature's face,
In every varying charm her beauty wears,
How have I loved thy pencil! Not a grace
Shed over earth from yon blue vault above,
At Dawn, Noon, Sunset, Twilight, or when Night
Draws o'er the sleeping world her silvery veil,
But thou hast traced its source and made thine own!
Nay, not an hour that circles through the day,
But thou hast marked its influence on the scene,
And touched each form with corresponding light;
Till all subdued the landscape round assumes,-
Like visions seen through Hope's enchanted glass,-
A beauty not its own; and "cloud-capped towers,"
And gorgeous palaces, and temples reared,
As if by magic, line the busy strand
Of some broad sea, that ripples on in gold
To meet the setting sun! Nor less I prize
Thy solemn twilight glooms; when to mine eye,
Indefinite, each object takes the shape
That fancy lists; and in the crimsoned west,
Bright as the memory of a blissful dream,
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