'Tis better we should never meet again-- Our love's renewing were but thy undoing: When I am gone, time will subdue thy pain, And thou wilt yield thee to another's wooing-- For me, I go to seek a name in story-- To find a future brighter than the past-- Yet 'midst my highest, wildest dreams of glory, Sweet thoughts of thee will mingle to the last.
And though this widowed heart may love another-- For living without love, it soon would die-- There will be moments when it cannot smother Thy sweet remembrance with a passing sigh. Amidst the ashes of its dying embers For thee there will be found one deathless thought; Yes, dearest lady! while this heart remembers, Believe me, thou shall never be forgot.
Once more farewell! Oh it is hard to yield thee, To lose for life, forever, thing so fair! How bright a destiny it were to shield thee-- Yet since I am denied the husband's care, This grief within my breast here do I smother-- Forego _thy_ painful sacrifice to prove, That I have been, what never can another, The hero of thy heart, my own sweet victim love.
Torn from its stem to bloom awhile Upon thy breast, the dazzling flower Imbibed new radiance from thy smile-- But, ah! it faded in an hour. So thou, from peaceful home betrayed, In beaming beauty floated by; But ere thy summer had decayed, We saw thee languish, faint and die.
_Extempore. On a Broken Harp-string._ Too rude the touch--the broken cord No more may utter music-word, Yet lives each tone within the air, Its trembling sighs awakened there. So in my heart the song I sung, When thou in rapture o'er me hung, Still lives--yet thine is not the spell To lure the music from its shell.
Day dawned above a city's mart, But not 'mid peace and prayer; The shouts of frenzied multitudes Were on the thrilling air.
A guiltless man to death was led, Through crowded streets and wide, And a fairy child, with waving curls, Was clinging to his side.
The father's brow with pride was calm, But trusting and serene, The child's was like the Holy One's In Raphael's paintings seen.
She shrank not from the heartless throng, Nor from the scaffold high; But now and then with beaming smile Addressed her parent's eye.
Athwart the golden flood of morn Was poised the wing of Death, As 'neath the fearful guillotine The doomed one drew his breath.