LOVE.

———

BY A. J. REQUIER.

———

Oh, with more than the pilgrim of Mecca’s devotion,

When he looks on the shrine which his worship endears,

Is the glance which we cast at the young heart’s devotion,

Its first rose of summer—the last which it bears;

Bright as a halo of sunshine reposing

At break of the morn on a billowless stream,

Where the wavering shadows are fitfully moving,

Or blush of a Peri that smiles in a dream.

Thus, thus must thou dwell on each glance of affection,

Each token of love I have strewed at thy shrine,

When thy bosom first heaved at the fear of detection,

And its secret alone was imparted to mine;

It is linked with each thought that is born in thy waking,

It embosoms each fancy that softens thy sleep,

And, if e’er it be wild as the waves in their breaking,

’Tis the image of Heaven that breaks on the deep!

For vainly the bosom whose pulses have throbbed

To the beat of a heart it had warmed with its fire,

Seeks to freeze the remembrance of tears it has sobbed,

And to smother the anguish of pining desire;

The remembrance will live, the remembrance will cling.

As the ever-green ivy encircles the oak,

And the tempest may strike with its withering wing,

But together they bend and together are broke!

Bright star of my soul! thus united we stand,

Intermingled in being and blended in breath,

Come fate with her darkest, her gloomiest band,

We will bend, we will break undivided in death;

’Twas Heaven decreed it, ’twas Heaven that wove

The tie which has bound us in home and in heart,

And this only we know, we live on but to love,

And thus loving we never, oh, never can part!