UNHAPPY LOVE.

———

BY GEO. D. PRENTICE.

———

’Tis vain, ’tis vain, these idle tears!

Thou art far distant now;

No more, oh never more my lips

May press thy pale, sweet brow;

And yet I cannot, cannot burst

The deep and holy spell that first

Bade my strong spirit bow

With all of passion’s hopes and fears

Before thee in our happier years.

Those eves of love, those blessed eves—

Their memory still comes back

A glory and a benison

O’er life’s bewildering track,

Their light has vanished from our lot

Like meteor-gleams and left us—what?

The sigh, the tear, the rack!

And yet upon their visions blest

Still love can turn and sink to rest.

I know thou lovest me, I know

Thine eyes with tears are dim,

I know that stricken love still chants

To thee its mournful hymn;

I know the shadows of love’s dream

In the deep waves of memory’s stream

Like soft star-shadows swim;

But oh! the fiend of wild unrest

Is raging in my tortured breast.

Forgive me, gentle one, forgive

My burning dreams of thee;

Forgive me that I dare to let

Forbidden thoughts go free;

My torrent-passions madly sweep

On, darkly on, and will not sleep

But in death’s silent sea;

And I—a mouldering wreck—am still

The victim of their stormy will.

Ah, dear one, suns will rise and set,

And moons will wax and wane,

The seasons come and go, but we

Must never meet again;

That thought, whene’er I hear thy name,

Is like a wild and raging flame

Within my heart and brain;

But none, save thee, shall ever know

The secret of my living wo.

Oft at the sunset’s holy time,

Our spirits’ trysting hour,

I wander to commune with thee

Beneath the wildwood bower;

And o’er me there thy tone of love,

Like the low moaning of a dove,

Steals with a soothing power;

’Tis gone—my voice in anguish calls,

But silence on the desert falls.

I gaze on yon sweet moon as erst

We gazed on that dear night

When our deep, parting vows were said

Beneath its mournful light;

And then with tones, low, sweet and clear,

Thou breathest in my ravished ear

And risest on my sight—

I call thee, but the woods around

With mocking voice repeat the sound.

I look on each memento dear,

The tress, the flower, the ring,

And these thy sweet and gentle form

Back to my spirit bring;

I seem to live past raptures o’er,

Our hands, our hearts, our lips once more

In one wild pressure cling—

It fades—I mourn the vision flown

And start to find myself alone.

I look upon thy pictured face

’Till from my straining eyes

My soul steals out to animate

The sweet but lifeless dyes;

The dark eyes wake, the dear lips speak,

Their breath is warm upon my cheek—

I clasp the living prize;

Alas! I wake to cold despair,

There’s but a painted mockery there.

My youth is vanished from my life,

And ah! I feel that now

The lines of manhood’s fading prime

Are deepening on my brow;

My life is in its evening shade,

And soon its last pale flowers will fade

Upon the withering bough,

Alas! alas! that life should be

So fleeting and not passed with thee!

Farewell, our dreams are idle now,

And tears are idler yet,

But oft beneath the midnight moon

My eyelids still are wet;

Oh! I could bear life’s every grief,

Its shade, its cloud, its withered leaf,

Its sun’s last darkened set,

Could I but know that we might love

As now in that bright world above.

Farewell—farewell—yon gentle star

Is pure and bright like thee—

But lo! a dark cloud near it moves,

The type, alas, of me!

From the blue heavens the cloud will go,

But that unfading star will glow

Still beautiful and free;

And thus thy life, with fadeless ray,

May shine when I am passed away.