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(p. 32)

 

8.

 

NA LUZ DO FOGO

 

            SWEETHEART, the wind is loud about the house,

            The breakers hiss upon the distant shore,

            And through the tangled clouds, the spectre moon

            Flies headlong, like a terror-stricken roe

            Before the demon hunters of the storm.

            Ay, draw the curtains close, ’tis bitter cold,

            Put by that musty book, and sit you here

            Beside me in the pleasant flickering

            Of the warm firelight. Now methinks we seem

            To be ourselves the living counterpart

            Of those time-mellowed pictures on the walls

            That the old masters painted, years gone by,

            Half tender shadow and half ruddy glow.

            Nay, darling, lay those papers all aside,

            I shall not write this evening, I am sad,

            For strangers, child, have stolen my thoughts away,

            And sung ‘my songs before me, and my soul

            Wrapt in a cloak of silence stands apart;

(p. 33)

            And they may laugh and glory in their wit,

            I care not, –– it was mine as well as theirs,

            Mine first, perchance; but I will give no sign,

            Lest they should think me poor who robbed me most.

 

            Your eyes reproach me, darling; –– I am weak,

            We all are foolish children at the best,

            I most of all; –– forgive me, for I spoke

            In bitterness, and I am sick at heart.

            Yet this becomes me not, nor is it well

            I should be jealous that some wandering bard

            Other than I, hath haply seen and pluck’d

            These flowers of fancy, blooming in the spring

            Of fertile genius. I beheld them first,

            Being far off, but he who pluck’d was near.

            Was he to blame? Should I have done the like,

            Or left them for another? Ah, I know

            I should have gathered them, and justly too.

 

            Come closer, sweetheart, lay your hand in mine,

            And tell me some sweet tale of long ago,

            That dreamy “long ago,” that evermore

            Seems fairer, –– like the fair face of a bride, ––

            Through the soft veil of years,

                                                           Ah, well-a-day!

            We sit entranced beside a golden lake

            And shape sweet pictures in its luminous depths,

            Not knowing that the glories we behold

            Are but the mirage of a purer sky

(p. 34)

            Above us, –– the foreshadowing of things

            That shall hereafter be.

                                                           But better far,

            Sweetheart, to stand as now I seem to stand

            Upon the summit of a mighty hill,

            The Mountain of the Present Age, and view

            Far off across the misty sea of Time,

            The broad low light of coming Dawn, that grows

            And widens slowly up the murky sky.

            Sweetheart! the day will break, but not for me,

            I shall not look on it; but it will come,

            Ay, it will surely come, –– a glorious day

            Of knowledge and of liberty, –– a day

            Of universal brotherhood and peace;

            A day of truth and wisdom, when these storms

            Of petty strifes that set the world ajar,

            These jealousies and tyrannies of power,

            Shall all be put to silence, as of old,

            The poets say, that at the Voice of GOD,

            Melodious Order robed in Light arose

            Through gloomy chaos, and confusion ceased.

 

 

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