< Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu
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APPENDIX.
| And all varieties of things in one; | |
| Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise | |
| All light and laughter in the morning; fear | |
| No petty customs nor appearances, | |
| But think what others only dreamed about; | |
| And say what others did but think; and do | |
| What others would but say; and glory in | |
| What others dared but do; it was these which won me; | |
| And that she never schooled within her breast | |
| One thought or feeling, but gave holiday | |
| To all; and that she told me all her woes | |
| And wrongs and ills; and so she made them mine | |
| In the communion of love; and we | |
| Grew like each other, for we loved each other; | |
| She, mild and generous as the sun in spring; | |
| And I, like earth, all budding out with love. | |
| *** | |
| The beautiful are never desolate: | |
| For some one alway loves them; God or man; | |
| If man abandons, God Himself takes them: | |
| And thus it was. She whom I once loved died, | |
| The lightning loathes its cloud; the soul its clay. | |
| Can I forget that hand I took in mine, | |
| Pale as pale violets; that eye, where mind | |
| And matter met alike divine? ah, no! | |
| May God that moment judge me when I do! | |
| Oh! she was fair; her nature once all spring | |
| And deadly beauty, like a maiden sword, | |
| Startiingly beautiful. I see her now! | |
| Wherever thou art thy soul is in my mind; | |
| Thy shadow hourly lengthens o'er my brain | |
| And peoples all its pictures with thyself; | |
| Gone, not forgotten; passed, not lost; thou wilt shine | |
| In heaven like a bright spot in the sun! | |
| She said she wished to die, and so she died, | |
| For, cloudlike, she poured out her love, which was | |
| Her life, to freshen this parched heart. It was thus; | |
| I said we were to part, but she said nothing; | |
| There was no discord; it was music ceased, | |
| Life's thrilling, bursling, bounding joy. She sate, | |
| Like a house-god, her hands fixed on her knee, | |
| And her dark hair lay loose and long behind her, | |
| Through which her wild bright eye flashed like a flint; | |
| She spake not, moved not, but she looked the more, | |
| As if her eye were action, speech, and feeling. |
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