Page 49 of 172 TO ONE IN PARADISE - Complete Poetical Works

TO ONE IN PARADISE,

Thou wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine--

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise

But to be overcast!

A voice from out the Future cries,

"On! on!"--but o'er the Past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me

The light of Life is o'er!

"No more--no more--no more"--

(Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore)

Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy dark eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams--

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams!

Alas! for that accursed time

They bore thee o'er the billow,

From love to titled age and crime,

And an unholy pillow!

From me, and from our misty clime,

Where weeps the silver willow!

1835

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		"Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs." Albert Einstein