OU have taken back the promise
That you spoke so long ago;
Taken back the heart you gave me—
I must even let it go.
Where Love once has breathed, Pride dieth:
So I struggled, but in vain,
First to keep the links together,
Then to piece the broken chain.
But it might not be so freely
All your friendship I restore, And the heart that I had taken As my own for evermore.
No shade of reproach shall touch you,
Dread no more a claim from me
But I will not have you fancy
That I count myself as free.
I am bound with the old promise;
What can break that golden chain?
Not even the words that you have spoken,
Or the sharpness of my pain:
Do you think, because you fail me
And draw back your hand to-day,
That from out the heart I gave you
My strong love can fade away?
It will live. No eyes may see it,
In my soul it will lie deep,
Hidden from all; but I shall feel it
Often stirring in its sleep.
So remember, that the friendship
Will endure in hope and patience,
Till you ask for it again.
Perhaps in some long twilight hour,
Like those we have known of old,
When past shadows gather round you,
And your present friends grow cold,
stretch your hands out towards me,
you will-I know not when
I shall nurse my love and keep it
Faithfully for you, till then.
HAT lack the valleys and mountains
That once were green and gay?
What lack the babbling fountains?
Their voice is sad to-day.
Only the sound of a voice,
Tender and sweet and low,
That made the earth rejoice,
A year ago!
What lack the tender flowers?
A shadow is on the sun :
What lack the merry hours,
That I long that they were done?
Only two smiling eyes,
That told of joy and mirth;
They are shining in the skies,
I mourn on earth!
What lacks my heart, that makes it
So weary and full of pain,
That trembling Hope forsakes it,
Never to come again?
Only another heart,
Tender and all mine own,
In the still grave it lies,
Y Life you ask of? why, you know
Full soon my little Life is told;
It has had no great joy or woe,
For I am only twelve years old.
Ere long I hope I shall have been
On my first voyage, and wonders seen.
Some princess I may help to free
From pirates on a far-off sea;
Or, on some desert isle be left,
Of friends and shipmates all bereft.
For the first time I venture forth,
From our blue mountains of the north.
My kinsman kept the lodge that stood
Guarding the entrance near the wood,
By the stone gateway grey and old,
With quaint devices carved about,
And broken shields; while dragons bold
Glared on the common world without;
And the long trembling ivy spray
Half hid the centuries' decay.
In solitude and silence grand
The castle towered above the land:
The castle of the Earl, whose name
(Wrapped in old bloody legends) came
Down through the times when Truth and Right
Bent down to armèd Pride and Might.
He owned the country far and near;
And, for some weeks in every year,
(When the brown leaves were falling fast
And the long, lingering autumn passed,)
He would come down to hunt the deer,
With hound and horse in splendid pride.
The story lasts the live-long year,
The peasant's winter evening fills,
|