But dost thou love me? tell me—wilt thou love me?
Since I have known thee I have done nought else.
All hours not spent with thee are blanks between stars.
I love thee! love thee! love thee! madly love thee!
Oh! thou hast drank my heart dry of all love!
It will be empty to aught after thee.
Come, dry thine eyes. Blessings on those sweet eyes!
By Heaven! they might a moment win the glance
Of any seraph gazing not on God.
No wonder they drew thine. There is a tear!
Ay; strange and startling is the first hot tear
That we have shed for years; and which hath lain
Like to a water-fairy in the eye’s
Blue depths—spell-bound in the socket of the soul.
Death brought it not—pain brought it not—nor shame;
Nor penitence—nor pity—nor despair:
Nothing but love could. For a fearful time
We can keep down the floodgates of the heart,
But we must draw them sometime; or it will burst
Like sand this brave embankment of the breast,
And drain itself to dry death. When pride thaws—
Look for floods!
Now, thou wilt be very kind
When next we meet? Our time will soon be gone.
I cannot think of time:—there is no time!
Time! time! I hate thee—with the hate of Hell
For aught that’s good—but thou art infamous.
I win give thee half my immortality
To keep back for one hour. Leave me, to-night;
And wither me, to-morrow, like a weed!
Where is he now?
In Hell—I hope.
What mean’st thou?
He wronged thee never. Say, when cometh he?
To-night.
He comes to sever us, like fate.
But shall he part us?
Never! Let him part
The sun in two first.
It was ever thus:
I am made to make unhappy all around me.
I will not hear of thy being wrong—it is I.
I am the false usurper. And since one
Out of the three must be a sacrifice,
Let it be me. It shall be.
Thou didst swear,
Even now, to love me ever.
Be it so.
I have sworn—and now and then I keep my oath—
I will not give thee up, so save me, God!
Oh! we have been too happy, have we not?
But, now I think of it, we might have known
It could not last. Woe follows bliss as close
As death does life—as naturally, may be.
We might have thought—
I never thought about it
My love—Elissa! ah, how cold thy hand is!
Here—warm it on my heart. Nay, let it be.
The hand that is on the heart is on the soul.
And it is thus some moments take the wheel,
And steer us through eternity. Believe me,
Could I but crowd life, love too, in one throb,
I would beat it out, this moment, in thy hand,
And would die blessing.
Give me my hand back!
My sweet one! if this heart hath warmed thy hand,
It hath not beaten in vain—it but returns
A pleasure, and a passion, and a power:
For oft at touch of thine this bosom burns.
Love hath no end except itself. We only
Felt we loved and were happy.
Ah! It was so.
Our sole misfortune is, we have been happy;
We never shall be happy here again.
Nay, say not so. Let us be happy now.
Happy? To fling aside thy wavy locks,
And feed mine eyes on thy white brow—to look
Deep in thine eyes till I feel mine have drank
Full of that soft wet fire which floats in thine—
Eyes which I ne’er would leave—yet when most near,
Then most astray I—oh! to lay my cheek
Upon thy sweet and swelling bosom thus;
Where midst upon the beauty of thy breast
Sits love like God between the cherubim—
To crop the red budding kisses om thy lips—
To name thee, make thee, but one moment, mine—
Delights me more than all that earth can lend
The good or bad—or Heaven can give the saved.
One long wild kiss of sunny sweets, till each
Lack breath, the lips half bleed, and, come—thou knowest!
I ask but one such—let it last for ever!
Now, Festus! this is wrong.
What?—what is wrong?
Shall my blood never bound beneath beauty’s touch,
Heart throb, nor eye thaw with hers—when her tears
Drop, quick and bright, upon the glowing brow
Plunged in her bosom—because, forsooth, it is wrong?
Let it be wrong! it is wrong, it is wretchedness
That I would lose both sense and soul to suffer.
How dare we love each other as we do?
Give me some wine! more—more, love!
Drink and drain
The bowl! the vintage of a hundred years
Would never slake the memory of shame;
Nor quench the thirst of folly.
Fill again!
My beauty! sing to me, and make me glad.
Thy sweet words drop upon the ear as soft
As rose-leaves on a well: and I could listen,
As though the immortal melody of Heaven
Were wrought into one word—that word a whisper,
That whisper all I want from all I love.
I am not happy, and I cannot sing.
Thou lookest happy. I wish I were so.
They tell us that the body of the sun
Is dark, and hard, and hollow; and that light
Is but a floating fluid veiling him.
Ah! how oft, and how much, the heart is like him!
Despite the electric light it lives and hides in.
Entering.
A singer who was told to come is here.
Wilt hear him?
Yes, love—gladly.
Show him in.
What have you there?
Oh! I think, everything.
Well, anything will be enough this once.
The last new song?
Certainly; here it is. Sings.
Oh! let not a lovely form
With feeling fill thine eye;
Oh! let not the bosom warm
At love-lorn lady’s sigh—
For how false is the fairest breast;
How little worth, if true:
And who would wish possessed,
What all must scorn or rue?
Then pass by beauty with looks above;
Oh! seek never—share never—woman’s love!Oh! let not a planet-like eye
Imbeam its tale on thine;
In truth ’tis a lie—though a lie
Scarce less than truth divine.
And the light of its look on the young
Is wildfire with the soul;
Ye follow and follow it long,
But
