I trim it well, to be the wanderer's guiding-star.
Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame!
Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame:
But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know, What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.
What I love shall come like visitant of air, Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;What loves me, no word of mine shall e'er betray, Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear--
Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:
He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.
ENCOURAGEMENT.
I do not weep; I would not weep;Our mother needs no tears:
Dry thine eyes, too; 'tis vain to keep This causeless grief for years.
What though her brow be changed and cold, Her sweet eyes closed for ever?
What though the stone--the darksome mould Our mortal bodies sever?
What though her hand smooth ne'er again Those silken locks of thine?
Nor, through long hours of future pain, Her kind face o'er thee shine?
Remember still, she is not dead;She sees us, sister, now;Laid, where her angel spirit fled, 'Mid heath and frozen snow.
And from that world of heavenly light Will she not always bend To guide us in our lifetime's night, And guard us to the end?
Thou knowest she will; and thou mayst mourn That WE are left below:
But not that she can ne'er return To share our earthly woe.
STANZAS.
Often rebuked, yet always back returning To those first feelings that were born with me, And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning For idle dreams of things which cannot be:
To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;And visions rising, legion after legion, Bring the unreal world too strangely near.