Poems (Blagden)/My monogram

by Isa Blagden

MY MONOGRAM.

WRITTEN IN ROME, JAN. 7TH, 1867.

I.

Circles of love and of pleasure,
 Barred by a cross of flame,
Unite, and divide, and measure
 The letters which form my name.

II.

The symbols are full and complete,
 Separate yet merged in the whole;
As life's bitter is blended with sweet,
 So the light and the dark in this scroll.

III.

In my fate has been sunshine and joy,
 Fair triumphs to heart and to brain;

But the good has had ever alloy,
 And each pleasure was marred by a pain.

IV.

And all was confused, and I knew
 Neither how to renounce nor aspire,
Till my soul had unravelled the clue,
 And this truth was burned in it with fire.

V.

Through yearning, fruition, and loss,
 To make duty my goal and my aim,
As the circles are held in the cross!
 My life's motto is writ in my name.