Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/235

      As Aladdin sought the basements
      His fair palace rose upon,
      And the four-and-twenty casements
      Which gave answers to the sun;
So, in wilderment of gazing, I looked up, and I looked down.

      Years have vanished since, as wholly
      As the little bower did then;
      And you call it tender folly
      That such thoughts should come again?
Ah! I cannot change this sighing for your smiling, brother-men!

      For this loss it did prefigure
      Other loss of better good,
      When my soul, in spirit-vigour,
      And in ripened womanhood,
Fell from visions of more beauty than an arbour in a wood.

      I have lost—oh many a pleasure—
      Many a hope, and many a power—
      Studious health and merry leisure—
      The first dew on the first flower!
But the first of all my losses was- the losing of the bower.

      I have lost the dream of Doing,
      And the other dream of Done—
      The first spring in the pursuing,
      The first pride in the Begun,—
First recoil from incompletion, in the face of what is won—

      Exultations in the far light,
      Where some cottage only is—
      Mild dejections in the starlight
      Which the sadder-hearted miss;
And the child-cheek blushing scarlet, for the very shame of bliss!