Soon, O Ianthe! Life is O'er

Oh! yet one smile, tho' dark may lower
Around thee clouds of woe and ill,
Let me yet feel that I have power,
Mid Fate's bleak storms, to soothe thee still.

Tho' sadness be upon thy brow,
Yet let it turn, dear love, to me,
I cannot bear that thou should'st know
Sorrow I do not share with thee.

I lov’d thee from the earliest dawn,
When first I saw thy beauty’s ray,
And will, until life’s eve comes on,
And beauty’s blossom fades away;
And when all things go well with thee,
With smiles and tears remember me.

I’ll love thee when thy morn is past,
And wheedling gallantry is o’er,
When youth is lost in age’s blast,
And beauty can ascend no more,
And when life’s journey ends with thee,
O, then look back and think of me.

I’ll love thee with a smile or frown,

And now, my Marian, from its shackles free,
My wearied fancy turns for ease to thee;
To thee, my compass through life’s varied stream,
My constant object, and unfailing theme.
Torn from the bosom of my soul’s repose,
And self-devoted to surrounding woes,
Oft o’er my solitary thoughts I brood—
(For passing crowds to me are solitude)—
Catch thy loved image, on thy beauties dwell,
Improved by graces which no tongue can tell,
The look which I have seen, by love endeared,
The voice to love attuned, which I have heard.
Or rapt in thoughts of higher worth, adore
Thy virtues, drawn by mem’ry’s faithful store;
Or court, as now obsequious at her shrine,

Poet—
Enchanting spirit!—at thy votive shrine
I lowly bend a simple wreath to twine;
O Come from the ideal world and fling
Thy airy fingers o’er my rugged string;
Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth
The thrilling song that tells thy heavenly birth—

Fancy—
Happiness when from earth she fled
I passed on her heavenward flight—
“Take this crown,” the spirit said
“Of heaven’s own golden light—
To the sons of sorrow the token give,
And bid them follow my steps and live!”—

Ianthe! you are call’d to cross the sea!
A path forbidden me!
Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
Upon the mountain-heads,
How often we have watcht him laying down
His brow, and dropt our own
Against each other’s, and how faint and short
And sliding the support!
What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest,
Ianthe! nor will rest
But on the very thought that swells with pain.
O bid me hope again!
O give me back what Earth, what (without you)
Not Heaven itself can do—
One of the golden days that we have past,

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty’s orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.

AH whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?
What wontless fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,
Thou in me kindlest much more great desire,
And up aloft above my strength dost raise
The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.

And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main: