FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238  
239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   >>  
Eternal truth, and in its better light All that your legal falsehoods now conceal, Will stand forth clearly in the whole world's sight. A REPRIMAND. Behold my soul? She sits so far above you Your wildest dream has never glanced so high; Yet in the old-time when you said, "I love you," How fairly we were mated, eye to eye How long we dallied on in flowery meadows, By languid lakes of purely sensuous dreams, Steeped in enchanted mists, beguiled by shadows, Casting sweet flowers upon loitering streams, My memory owns, and yours; mine with deep shame, Yours with a sigh that life is not the same. What parted us, to leave you in the valley And send me struggling to the mountain-top? Too weak for duty, even love failed to rally The manhood that should float your pinions up. On my spent feet are many half-healed bruises, My limbs are wasted with their heavy toil, But I have learned adversity's "sweet uses," And brought my soul up pure through every soil; _Have I_ no right to scorn the man's dead power That leaves you far below me at this hour? Scorn you I do, while pitying even more The ignoble weakness of a strength debased. Do I yet mourn the faith that died of yore-- The trust by timorous treachery effaced? Through all, and over all, my soul mounts free To heights of peace you cannot hope to gain, Sings to the stars its mountain minstrelsy, And smiles down proudly on your murky plain; 'Tis vain to invite you--yet come up, come up, Conquer your way toward the mountain-top! TO MRS. ----. I cannot find the meaning out That lies in wrong and pain and strife; I know not why we grope through grief, Tear-blind, to touch the higher life. I see the world so subtly fair, My heart with beauty often aches; But ere I quiet this sweet pain, Some cross so presses, the heart breaks. To-day, this lovely golden day, When heaven and earth are steeped in calm; When every lightest air that blows, Sheds its delicious freight of balm. If I but ope my lips, I sob; If but an eyelid lift, I weep; I deprecate all good or ill, And only wish for endless sleep. For who, I ask, has set my feet In all these dark and troubled ways? And who denies my soul's d
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238  
239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   >>  



Top keywords:
mountain
 

Conquer

 
weakness
 

debased

 
timorous
 

strength

 

meaning

 
heights
 

minstrelsy

 

smiles


ignoble
 

mounts

 

invite

 

Through

 

effaced

 
proudly
 

treachery

 
eyelid
 
deprecate
 

delicious


freight

 

troubled

 

denies

 

endless

 

higher

 

subtly

 

beauty

 

strife

 

heaven

 

golden


steeped
 

lightest

 

lovely

 
breaks
 

presses

 

adversity

 

flowery

 

dallied

 
meadows
 
languid

fairly

 

purely

 
sensuous
 

flowers

 

loitering

 

streams

 

memory

 

Casting

 

shadows

 

Steeped