TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)

TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning—

Of all to whom thine absence is the night—

The blotting utterly from out high heaven

The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee

Hourly for hope—for life—ah! above all,

For the resurrection of deep-buried faith

In Truth—in Virtue—in Humanity—

Of all who, on Despair’s unhallowed bed

Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen

At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!”

At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled

In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes—

Of all who owe thee most—whose gratitude

Nearest resembles worship—oh, remember

The truest—the most fervently devoted,

And think that these weak lines are written by him—

By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think

His spirit is communing with an angel’s.

1847.

TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,

In the mad pride of intellectuality,

Maintained “the power of words”—denied that ever

A thought arose within the human brain

Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:

And now, as if in mockery of that boast,

Two words-two foreign soft dissyllables—

Italian tones, made only to be murmured

By angels dreaming in the moonlit “dew

That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,”—

Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,

Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,

Richer, far wider, far diviner visions

Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,

(Who has “the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures”)

Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.

The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.

With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,

I can not write-I can not speak or think—

Alas, I can not feel; for ’tis not feeling,

This standing motionless upon the golden

Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,

Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,

And thrilling as I see, upon the right,

Upon the left, and all the way along,

Amid empurpled vapors, far away

To where the prospect terminates-_thee only!_

1848.