One burning spot of shame--the wretched price
Of proving traitor to the wondrous star
That with a cloud of splendor wraps my way.
And yet, from the bright wine-cup of my life,
The rosy vintage, bubbling to the brim,
Thou With a passionate lip didst drain away
And to God's sweet gift--human sympathy--
Making my bosom dumb as the dark grave,
Didst leave me drifting on the waste of life,
A fruitless pillar of the desert dust;
For, from the ashes of a ruined hope
There springs no life but an unwearied woe
That feeding upon sunken lip and cheek
Pushes its victims from mortality.
Vainly the light rain of the summer time
Waters the dead limbs of the blasted oak.
Love is the worker of all miracles;
And if within some cold and sunless cave
Thou hadst lain lost and dying, prompted not
My feet had struck that pathway, and I could,
With the neglected sunshine of my hair,
Have clasped thee from the hungry jaws of Death,
And on my heart, as on a wave of light
Have lulled thee to the beauty of soft dreams.
Weak, weak imagination! be dissolved
Like a chance snowflake in a sea of fire.
Let the poor-spirited children of Despair
Hang on the sepulchre of buried Hope
The fadeless garlands of undying song.
Though such gift turned on its pearly hinge