Louisa Sarah Bevington
One more bruised heart!
To a Critic
The Poet's Tear
Cloud-climbing
To a Critic
NO theme for song--you say--the strength of man?
Only his tyrant passion? Man, the slave,
Fit theme for hymning? Never man, the brave,
Whose eye roves widely, clear as eagle-scan,
With vowed decision to fight out the plan
Of mercy stedfastly, and sorrow save,--
Who taketh will for sword, and hope for stave,
And frowns down passion as a master can?
Nay, give not whimpering lovers all the lays!
Too long their tears have sodden soft your art,
Till songs and sighs scarce know themselves apart,
And the sweet Easiest wins the proudest praise.
Let music welcome some undaunted heart
That wrestles songless through the nights and days.
One New Year's Eve
HEART! art thou dead within me? Why this calm
To see thy joy die with the dying year?
When more is fact than ever thou didst fear
Of all thou would'st not have of hurt and harm;
When less than thou hadst pictured is of balm
In uttermost surrender; when more dear
Seems that thou hast surrendered, now and here,
Than ever aught before? Why no alarm
To face the blank black morning of to-morrow
With not one partisan for thine own sorrow?
Why canst thou smile, O silly heart! to see
The cold strewn ruin of the life of thee?
Haply yet more than love's dear joy lies dead,--
Thy very self of self that sufferèd?
One more bruised heart!
ONE more bruised heart laid bare! one victim more!One more wail heard! Oh, is there never end
Of all these passionate agonies, that rend
Young hopes to tatters through enslavements sore?
So long, pale child, your patient spirit bore
Its wrong in secret, ere you sought a friend;
And yet, what love of mine can ever mend
Again for you the veil your tyrant tore?
Oh, there are woes too bitter to be shown!
Oh, there are tears too burning to be seen!
Yet purest sympathy, select and clean,
May feel the agony its very own.
Sweet slave-child, whom your voiceless griefs oppress,
I cannot cure; I may in part express.
The Poet's Tear.
A TEAR welled up from a poet heart
And fell on a rose;
Lay there, bitter, and made it smart,--
The red, red rose!
Oh, the grief that wept it was full and pent,
And the sobbing pain-blood came and went
As song arose!
When the tear shall dry then shall song be spent;
O tear, lie still in thy bloomy tent,
And cherish thy pain in petal and scent,
Red, tear-filled rose.
The tear-drop hides in the rose's breast
For fear of a ray,--
For fear it should rise in the sun-lit air
And perish of glory and gladness there;--
O worst! O best!
So it quivers to music from day to day,
Hidden in scent and crimson away,
For fear of a ray in a rosy nest;--
O curst! O blest!
Shall the rose smile up in the eager sky
That the sun may give?
Or, shall grief be hidden, and passion shy,
That a song may live?
When the petals yield, then the tear shall dry;
If the heart be healed, so its song shall die;
As the poet grieves, so his music grows;--
O tear! O rose!
Shall song be sweet? or shall love be dear?
O tear-filled rose! and O poet's tear!
Who knows? Who knows?
Cloud-climbing
BE not discouraged, loved and struggling soul!
The light is hazy, and the way is cold;
Yet warmth shall come with climbing; and behold,
There shall be light transcendent at the goal.
Be not discouraged! though a hundred times
Your foot has slipt upon the upward way;
The clouds of life are rounded toward the day,
And he is nearest heaven who longest climbs.
Be not discouraged! I am grown one prayer
That courage never fail you; lest the mist
And gust of circumstance should, wreathing, twist
Your slackened foothold from the aspiring stair.
You shall not fail! Where billowed cloud is spread,
Your strenuous aspiration has my will
To second its intent, until--until
I see you vanish from me overhead.
I would have followed for your very sake,
But all my strength was spent to help you, dear;
And when your victory is safe and clear,
I almost think my heart of hearts will break.