Poems (Botta)/The Image Broken
THE IMAGE BROKEN.
’Twas but a dream; a fond and foolish dream; The calenture of a delirious brain,Whose fever thirst creates the rushing stream. Now to the actual I awake again:The vision to my gaze one moment granted,Fades in its light away, and leaves me disenchanted.
The image that my glowing fancy wrought, Now to the dust with ruthless hand I cast:Thus I renounce the worship that I sought; Of my own idol the iconoclast.The echo of “Eureka, I have found!”Falls back upon my heart, a vain and empty sound.
Oh disembodied being of my mind, So wildly loved, so fervently adored;In whom all high and glorious gifts I shrined, And my heart’s incense on the altar poured; Now do I know, that clad in mortal cuise,Ne’er on this earth wilt thou upon my vision rise.
That only in the vague, cold realm of thought, Shall I meet thee whom here I seek in vain;And like Egyptian Isis, when she sought The scattered fragments of Osiris slain,Now do I know that I shall never findBut fragments of thy soul within earth’s clay enshrined.
Thou whom I have not seen, and shall not see, Till the sad drama of this life be o’er!Yet do I not renounce my faith in thee: Thou still art mine, I thine, forevermore;And this belief shall be the funeral pyreOf all less noble love,—of all less high desire.
Here, like the Hindoo widow, I will bring Hope, youth, and all that woman prizes most,The glow of summer and the bloom of spring, And on thy altar lay the holocaust;And in my faith exulting, I will seeThe sacrifice consume, I consecrate to thee.
To love’s sweet tones my heart shall never thrill, Nor, as the tardy years their circles roll,Shall they the ardor of its pulses chill. Thus will I live, in widowhood of soul,Until, at last, my lingering exile o’er,Upon some lovelier star, too bless’d, we meet once more.
Oh, tell me not, that now indeed I dream; That these aspirings mocked at last will be:—Gleams of a higher life, to me they seem A sacred pledge of immortality.Tell not the yearning heart it shall not find:Oh Love, thou art too strong! Oh God, thou art too kind!