I have a mouth for kisses,
But there's no one to give and take; I have a heart in my bosom Beating for nobody's sake.
O warmth of love that is wasted!
Is there none to stretch a hand?
No other heart that hungers
In all the living land?
I could fondle the fisherman's baby,
And rock it into rest;
I could take the sunburnt sailor,
Like a brother, to my breast.
I could clasp the hand of any
Outcast of land or sea,
If the guilty palm but answered
The tenderness in me!
The sea might rise and drown me,
Cliffs fall and crush my head,
Were there one to love me, living,
Or weep to see me dead!
HE waters of my life were sweet, Before that bolt of sorrow fell; But now, though fainting with the heat, I dare not drink the bitter well.
My God! shall Sin across the heart Sweep like a wind that leaves no trace, But Grief inflict a rankling smart
No after blessing can efface?
I see the tired mechanic take
His evening rest beside his door, And gentlier, for their father's sake, His children tread the happy floor:
The kitchen teems with cheering smells,
With clash of cups and clink of knives,
And all the household picture tells
Of humble yet contented lives.
Then in my heart the serpents hiss:
What right have these, who scarcely know
The perfect sweetness of their bliss,
To flaunt it thus before my woe?
Like bread, Love's portion they divide,
Like water drink his precious wine,
When the least crumb they cast aside
Were manna for these lips of mine.
I see the friend of other days
Lead home his flushed and silent bride : His eyes are suns of tender praise, Her eyes are stars of tender pride.
Go, hide your shameless happiness,
The demon cries, within my breast;
Think not that I the bond can bless,
Which seeing, I am twice unblest.
The husband of a year proclaims
His recent honor, shows the boy,
And calls the babe a thousand names,
And dandles it in awkward joy :
And then I see the wife's pale cheek,
Her eyes of pure, celestial ray -
The curse is choked: I cannot speak,
But, weeping, turn my head away!
THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER.
AST night the Tempter came to me, and said:
"Why sorrow any longer for the dead?
The wrong is done: thy tears and groans are naught:
Forget the Past, thy pain but lives in thought.
Night after night, I hear thy cries implore
An answer: she will answer thee no more.
Give up thine idle prayer that Death may come
And thou mayst somewhere find her: Death is
dumb
To those that seek him. Live: for youth is thine.
Let not thy rich blood, like neglected wine,
Grow thin and stale, but rouse thyself, at last,
And take a man's revenge upon the Past.
What have thy virtues brought thee? Let them go,
And with them lose the burden of thy woe,
Their only payment for thy service hard:
They but exact, thou see'st, and not reward.
Thy life is cheated, thou art cast aside
In dust, the worn-out vessel of their pride.
Come, take thy pleasure: others do the same,
And love is theirs, and fortune, name and fame!
Let not the name of Vice thine ear affright:
Vice is no darkness, but a different light,
Which thou dost need, to see thy path aright;
Or if some pang in this experience lie,
Through counter-pain thy present pain will die.
Bethink thee of the lost, the barren years,
Of harsh privations, unavailing tears,
The steady ache of strong desires restrained,
And what thou hast deserved, and what obtained :
Then go, thou fool! and, if thou canst, rejoice
To make such base ingratitude thy choice,
While each indulgence which thy brethren taste
But mocks thy palate, as it runs to waste!"
So spake the Tempter, as he held outspread
Alluring pictures round my prostrate head.
"Twixt sleep and waking, in my helpless ear
His honeyed voice rang musical and clear;
And half persuaded, shaken half with fear,
I heard him, till the Morn began to shine,
And found her brow less dewy-wet than mine.
TONGUES of the Past, be still!
Are the days not over and gone?
The joys have perished that were so sweet,
But the sorrow still lives on.
I have sealed the graves of my hopes;
I have carried the pall of love :
Let the pains and pangs be buried as deep,
And the grass be as green above!
But the ghosts of the dead arise:
They come when the board is spread : They poison the wine of the banquet cups With the mould their lips have shed.
The pulse of the bacchant blood
May throb in the ivy wreath,
But the berries are plucked from the nightshade bough
That grows in the gardens of Death.
I sleep with joy at my heart,
Warm as a new-made bride;
But a vampire comes to suck her blood,
And I wake with a corpse at my side.
O ghosts, I have given to you
The bliss of the faded years;
The sweat of my brow, the blood of my heart,
And manhood's terrible tears!
Take them, and be content:
I have nothing more to give :
My soul is chilled in the house of Death,
And 't is time that I should live.
Take them, and let me be:
Lie still in the churchyard mould,
Nor chase from my heart each new delight
With the phantom of the old!
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