C. Strangers yet! After years of life together, After touch of wedded hands,- Strangers yet! After childhood's winning ways, Strangers yet! Oh, the bitter thought to scan But they only touch when met, Strangers yet! Will it evermore be thus,- Lord Houghton. CI. THAT DAY. I stand by the river where both of us stood, The flowers of the margin are many to see; I stand by the river-I think of that vow— Go, be sure of my love-by that treason forgiven; Of my prayers-by the blessings they win thee from Heaven; Of my grief-(guess the length of the sword by the sheath's,) By the silence of life, more pathetic than death's! Go,-be clear of that day! Mrs. Browning. CII. I stand where I last stood with thee! Sorrow, O sorrow! There is not a leaf on the trysting-tree; When shalt thou be once again what thou wert; Here we stood, ere we parted, so close side by side; Ah, never can fall from the days that have been Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. L CIII. Her last words at parting, how can I forget? Deep treasured thro' life, in my heart they shall stay; Like music whose charm in the soul lingers yet, When its sounds from the ear have long melted away. Let Fortune assail me, her threat'nings are vain; Those still-breathing words shall my talisman be,— “Remember, in absence, in sorrow and pain, There's one heart unchanging, that beats but for thee." From the desert's sweet well tho' the pilgrim must hie, Never more of that fresh-springing fountain to taste, He hath still of its bright drops a treasured supply, Whose sweetness lends life to his lips thro' the waste. So, dark as my fate is still doomed to remain, These words shall my well in the wilderness be,"Remember, in absence, in sorrow and pain, There's one heart, unchanging, that beats but for thee." T. Moore. CIV. Farewell! if ever fondest prayer But waft thy name beyond the sky. Oh! more than tears of blood can tell, These lips are mute, these eyes are dry; The thought that ne'er shall sleep again. Tho' grief and passion there rebel : I only know we loved in vain I only feel-Farewell!-Farewell. Lord Byron. |