Parerga/Through Its Long Night of Gloom
< Parerga
THROUGH ITS LONG NIGHT OF GLOOM.
Ὼ χαρίεσσ᾽ Ἀμαρυλλὶ, μόνας σέθεν οὐδὲ θανοίσαςΛασεύμεσθα. — — —Αἲ αἲ τῶ σκληρῶ μάλα δαίμονος, ὅς με λελόγχη.Theoc. Idyl. iv. 38.
Through its long night of gloom My heart looks back to thee,The statues of the tomb Scarce watch more faithfully.But hopeless, and forlorn As the sad sculptur'd stone,My heart exists to mourn The loved-one's loss alone.
Swift as the rainbow's hues Melt in the weeping sky,The loving, the beloved, On earth's cold bosom die.In the fresh dawn of life Their spirits with us stay,But fade before its sultry noon, Its evening's chill decay.
'Tis like the Elfin tale, Where the fairest and the bestWere ever singled forth To perish ere the rest.'Tis a garden, whence each flower In brightest beauty nurst,And the sweetest 'neath the shower Is torn away the first.
Had the Star, that in days of old Its soft light shed o'er me,Ne'er sunk in the shades of death, How changed my doom might be!I never had learned to sigh In solitary pain,I might feel the bliss to love And know I was loved again.
Oh! not a single grace Was o'er her features shedThat memory cannot trace, And raise again from the dead.Not a tone of that sweet young voice But thrills to my heart, as clearAs when its accents blest My unforgetful ear.
I was a child when we met, And young when thy spirit fled,The bitter soul-drops gush'd When they told me thou wast dead.Seldom until that hour Had grief won a tear from me;And few have I shed since then That did not flow for thee.
I never breathe thy name, Though none be round to hear;I dare not trust the air With the sound that was once so dear.Few know that I ever loved, None deem I love thee now;Oh that thou still wert here, Or I were cold as thou!