Poems (Odom)/To ——— (O come to me in dreams, love; smile on me once again)
For works with similar titles, see To —.
TO ———.
O come to me in dreams, love; smile on me once again; My heart is busy with its grief, my soul enwrapped in woe;I little thought in early days to know so much of pain; Life seemed a silver rivulet, so brightly did it flow.Turn back the foaming tide, love, this once turn back its waves, My spirit yearns so sadly now to travel o'er the past;My tears are falling silently above its many graves, Where all the freshness of my soul has been forever cast.
Those bright enchanted hours, when we knelt at pleasure's shrine, And tasted first the rosy draught that angel hands prepare; How eagerly we grasped the cup of Love's own ruby wine, Nor dreamed that aught of bitterness could lie in ambush there!'T is years since we have met, love; long, dreary, hopeless years Have cast their gloomy, cheerless pall above the bliss we knew.Some hours I have passed in joy, but more in fruitless tears, Still kneeling at the shattered shrine where once I knelt with you.
I know 'tis all in vain now, to mourn the days gone by; To linger even in a dream about the olden joy;For memory, with a cruel hand and cold, unerring eye, Still seeks and gathers up the links 't were mercy to destroy.Go where I may, your face, love, still haunts me like a dream: It rises spirit-like when I am bowed in silent prayer; 'T is printed on each tinted flower, 't is mirrored on the stream. Your voice is ever murmuring reproaches on the air.
Upbraidings for that bitter time when I, in angry pride, Threw back upon your breaking heart its faith, and love, and trust;When at my feet they trembled once in agony and died, And all your dearest, brightest hopes lay crumbling into dust.But, by the anguish I have known since that unhappy hour, By all the dreaded years to come while we apart must live,By all the glory of our love in its supremest power, And by its deathless memory, I know you will forgive.