VI.

Now never more, oh! never, in the worth Of its pure cause, let sorrowing love on earth Trust fondly--never more! The hope is crush’d That lit my life, the voice within me hush’d That spoke sweet oracles; and I return To lay my youth, as in a burial urn, Where sunshine may not find it. All is lost! No tempest met our barks--no billow toss’d; Yet were they sever’d, even as we must be, That so have loved, so striven our hearts to free From their close-coiling fate! In vain--in vain! The dark links meet, and clasp themselves again, And press out life. Upon the deck I stood, And a white sail came gliding o’er the flood, Like some proud bird of ocean; then mine eye Strain’d out, one moment earlier to descry The form it ached for, and the bark’s career Seem’d slow to that fond yearning: it drew near, Fraught with our foes! What boots it to recall The strife, the tears? Once more a prison wall Shuts the green hills and woodlands from my sight, And joyous glance of waters to the light, And thee, my Seymour!--thee! I will not sink! Thou, _thou_ hast rent the heavy chain that bound thee! And this shall be my strength--the joy to think That _thou_ may’st wander with heaven’s breath around thee, And all the laughing sky! This thought shall yet Shine o’er my heart a radiant amulet, Guarding it from despair. Thy bonds are broken; And unto me, I know, thy true love’s token Shall one day be deliverance, though the years Lie dim between, o’erhung with mists of tears.