Poems (Greenwood)/Hervey to nina.—miss bremer
HERVEY TO NINA.—miss bremer.
Divided in our lives, and yet twin-hearted! Our sad first parents shared a happier fate; When, from Love's Eden, dearest, we departed, 'T was ours to sever at the outer gate.
Ah! yet I know, whatever path thou 'rt tracing, Thy tearful eye is sometimes backward cast; Thou art not coldly from thy heart effacing The thrilling story of our blissful past,—
When life was like a sunset's glories blended With all the waking splendors of the morn, And when, dear love, if some light showers descended It seemed 't was but that rainbows might be born
O warm! O beautiful! O glorious season! Like the first blushing-time of Cashmere's roses! My soul forgets cold truth, and worldly reason, And in thy lap of languid joy reposes.
In reveries delicious I revisit Each spot where love's impassioned tale was told; Where moments passed of pleasure so exquisite, Time should have marked their flight with sands of gold.
Again upon my throbbing breast thou 'rt leaning, O fondly, wildly loved one! O adored! Again come back thy words of tenderest meaning, That once such transport through my bosom poured.
Again I feel the wish, intense and burning, To live within thy life, to drink thine air; That deep, mysterious, and mighty yearning Would draw me down from heaven, wert thou not there.
A fount there was within each bosom flowing, That gushed not water, but love's purple wine; Sparkling with rapture, and with passion glowing, It maketh mortals for a space divine.
'T was joy to know thee of that fountain drinking, Within my heart, upspringing but for thee, And I of thine as deeply, all unthinking There might be madness in that draught for me!
When all of bliss the earth-born may inherit, Divinely lavish, was around us thrown,And when the mystic union of the spirit Had twined our glowing beings into one,—
Then were we parted; Hope's ecstatic vision Grew dim with tears, and Joy's young pinion furled; Pillowed on flowers, we had a dream Elysian, And we have wakened in a stormy world!
Gone, gone for ever! we beheld it vanish, As a warm cloud melts in the blue above; Yet from our souls no power create can banish The golden memory of that dream of love!