Louisa Stuart Costello: Verses about Sorrow

By the brightness of the morning ray,
By the deepest shades of night—
Thy beauty has not pass'd away;
'Tis ever in my sight.

No sorrow e'er can light on me—
But when, beloved, we part,
My thoughts are bounded all in thee,
Thou Lote-tree* of my heart.

Oh! long enough my life has been,
Since I thy love have known;
I would not change the pleasing scene,
And find its beauties flown.

Then let me die, while yet no care
Has reached my trusting breast;
While sorrow is a stranger there,
And all is joy and rest.

Let me not feel what varied pain
Life's theatre can show—
That all our present hours are vain,
And all our future woe!

The transient time, for ever past,

How shall I dare review!—

The fatal day we parted last,

And wept out last adieu!

Alas! that day has swell'd to years—

That sorrow to a sea of tears!


I would the mournful thoughts would fly,

Regretted, loved in vain,

Among the dreams of memory

That never come again!—

Would their remembrance might decay,

Swept like the autumn leaves away!

Oh! how sad the recollection! in the midst of joy it
springs;
What a train of faded pleasures that fond idea brings!
All those hours are gone for ever—they were sweet, but
pass'd away
Like the sunny clouds that vanish in the midst of dying
day.

I have number'd all the sorrows this tortured heart has
known;
I have counted each delight I would ever call my own;
But the moments are so woven, that the guiding clew is
gone,
And the sorrow and the pleasure blended into one.

That one—oh! when we parted, it was glittering in that
tear;
That one—'twas in the accents that told we both were
dear:


It dwelt in those fond glances, too fleet, too early past;
It lived in that embrace—the tenderest—the last!

The last! oh, in that word there are ages of despair!
No summer thought of brightness can dwell untroubled
there;
Yet my soul was in that moment so fraught with joy and
pain,
And ' tis only recollection can give back the soul again!

Anniversary of the Loss of H.M.S. Tweed




Oh, what relief to gaze on yonder sky,
Where all is holy, calm, and purely bright!
Within, the sound of mirth and revelry
Startles the timid ear of sober night.


And eyes are bright and silver voices thrill,
As the harp echoes through the glittering hall;
The jest is there that wakes the laugh at will,
And mirth has cast her fairy spell o'er all.


I turn, fair spirit of light! where peaceful thou
Art shining in unatler'd majesty;
The thin clouds float across thy placid brow,
And catch its silver beam in passing by.

To-night!—oh! on this night—nor many years
Have wasted, since in sad regret and pain,
Upon the wave, the sound of woe, and tears,
And frantic pray'rs arose—arose in vain!


Thy light was shrouded then in deepest gloom;
On that dark coast no friendly radiance shone
To warn the victims of their gaping tomb—
Despair and death and horror reign'd alone!


Shine on, shine on, thou treacherous planet still;
Gild with thy beams the now untroubled wave:
Alas! thou fair and fatal cause of ill,
Thy smiles are lovely—but too late to save!

What are the dreams of him who may sleep

Where the solemn voice of the troubled deep

Steals on the wind with a sullen roar,

And the waters foam along the shore?

Who shelter'd lies in some calm retreat,

And hears the music of waves at his feet?


He sees not the sail that passes on

O'er the sunny fields of the sea, alone,

The farthest point that gleams on the sight,

A vanishing speck of glittering light.


He sees not the spray that, spreading wide,

Throws its lines of snow on the dark green tide;

Or the billows rushing with crests of foam

As they strove which first should reach their home—


Their home! What home has the restless main,

Which only arrives to return again,

Like the wand'rer she bears on her stormy breast,

Who seeks in vain for a place of rest.


Lo! His visions bear him along

To rocks that have heard the mermaid's song:

Or, borne on the surface of some dark surge,

Unharm'd he lies, while they onward urge


Their rapid course, and waft him away

To islands half hid 'midst the shadowy spray,

Where trees wave their boughs in the perfum'd gale,

And bid the wave-borne stranger hail;


Where birds are flitting like gems in the sun,

And streams over emerald meadows run,

That whisper in melody as they glide

To the flowers that blush along their side.


Sorrow ne'er came to that blissful shore,

For no mortal has entered that isle before:

There the Halcyon waits on the sparkling strand

Till the bark of her lover the Nautilus land;


She spreads her purple wings to the air,

And she sees his fragile vessel there—

She sees him float on the summer sea,

Where no breath but the sigh of his love may be.


The dreamer leaps towards that smiling shore—

When, lo! the vision is there no more!

Its trees, its flowers, its birds are gone—

A waste of waters is spread alone.


Plunged in the tide, he struggles amain—

High they pour, and he strives in vain:

He sinks—the billows close over his head,

He shrieks—'tis over—the dream is fled;


Secure he lies in his calm retreat,

And the idle waters still rave at his feet.