Yet fear not thou—to thee, in good or ill,
The heart, so sternly tried, is faithful still!
But when my steps are distant, and my name
Thou hear'st no longer in the song of fame,
When Time steals on, in silence to efface
Of early love each pure and sacred trace,
Causing our sorrows and our hopes to seem
But as the moonlight pictures of a dream,
Still shall thy soul be with me, in the truth
And all the fervor of affection's youth?
—If such thy love, one beam of heaven shall play
In lonely beauty, o'er thy wanderer's way."
"Ask not, if such my love! oh! trust the mind
To grief so long, so silently resign'd!
Let the light spirit, ne'er by sorrow taught
The pure and lofty constancy of thought,
Its fleeting trials eager to forget,
Rise with elastic power o'er each regret!
Foster'd in tears, our young affection grew,
And I have learn'd to suffer and be true.
Deem not my love a frail, ephemeral flower,
Nursed by soft sunshine and the balmy shower;
