Lines To One Who Wished To Read A Poem I Had Written

Nay, read it not, thou wouldst not know
What lives within my heart,
For from that fount it does not flow;
'Tis but the voice of Art.

I could not bid my proud heart speak,
Before the idle throng;
Rather in silence would it break
With its full tide of Song.

Yes, rather would it break, than bare,
To cold and careless eyes,
The hallowed dreams that linger there,
The tears and agonies.

My lyre is skillful to repress
Each deep, impassioned tone;
Its gushing springs of tenderness
Would flow for one alone.

The rock, that to the parching sand
Would yield no dewy drop,
Struck by the pilgrim prophet's want,
Gave all its treasure up.

My heart then, is my only lyre;
The prophet hath not spoken,
Nor kindled its celestial fire;
So, let its chords be broken.

I would not thou shouldst hear those lays,
Though harsh they might not be;
Though thou, perchance, might'st hear and praise,
They would not speak of me.

Lines On Reading Some Verse Entitles 'A Farewell To Love'

Oh, stern indeed must be that minstrel's heart,
In the world's dusty highway doomed to move,
Who with life's sunshine and its flowers can part,
Who strikes his harp, and sings, Farewell to Love!

To Love! that beam that colors all our light,
As the red rays illume the light of day;
Whose rose-hue, once extinguished from the sight,
Leaves the life-landscape of a dull, cold gray.

To Love! the ethereal, the Promethean spirit,
That bids this dust with life divine be moved;
The only memory that we still inherit
Of the lost Eden where our parents roved.

Oh, hopeless bard, recall that farewell strain,
Nor from thy beast let this fond faith depart;
Recall that utterance of thy cold disdain,
Thy doubt of Love, the atheism of the heart.

And on the altar reared within thy soul,
Let the rekindled flame again aspire
And guard it round by all things beautiful,
As vestal forms watched o'er the sacred fire; -

That fire that once extinguished on the shrine,
Gave fearful sign of coming woe to Rome,
As the quenched brightness of this light divine
Forebodes to thee a dark and loveless doom.