my lovely and inveterate foe
The present power to show,
Though such she be all language as exceeds.
She with a glance who rules us as her own,
Opening my breast my heart in hand to take,
Thus said to me: "Of this no mention make."
I saw her then, in alter'd air, alone,
So that I recognised her not--O shame
Be on my truant mind and faithless sight!
And when the truth I told her in sore fright,
She soon resumed her old accustom'd frame,
While, desperate and half dead, a hard rock mine became.

As spoke she, o'er her mien such feeling stirr'd,
That from the solid rock, with lively fear,
"Haply I am not what you deem," I heard;
And then methought, "If she but help me here,
No life can ever weary be, or drear;
To make me weep, return, my banish'd Lord!"
I know not how, but thence, the power restored,
Blaming no other than myself, I went,
And, nor alive, nor dead, the long day past.
But, because time flies fast,
And the pen answers ill my good intent,
Full many a thing long written in my mind
I here omit; and only mention such
Whereat who hears them now will marvel much.
Death so his hand around my vitals twined,
Not silence from its grasp my heart could save,
Or succour to its outraged virtue bring:
As speech to me was a forbidden thing,
To paper and to ink my griefs I gave--
Life, not my own, is lost through you who dig my grave.

I fondly thought before her eyes, at length,
Though low and lost, some mercy to obtain;
And this the hope which lent my spirit strength.
Sometimes humility o'ercomes disdain,
Sometimes inflames it to worse spite again;
This knew I, who so long was left in night,
That from such prayers had disappear'd my light;
Till I, who sought her still, nor found, alas!
Even her shade, nor of her feet a sign,
Outwearied and supine,
As one who midway sleeps, upon the grass
Threw me, and there, accusing the brief ray,
Of bitter tears I loosed the prison'd flood,
To flow and fall, to them as seem'd it good.
Ne'er vanish'd snow before the sun away,
As then to melt apace it me befell,
Till, 'neath a spreading beech a fountain swell'd;
Long in that change my humid course I held,--
Who ever saw from Man a true fount well?
And yet, though strange it sound, things known and sure I tell.

The soul