FELICIA HEMANS.
No more, no more—oh, never more returning,
Will thy beloved presence gladden earth;
No more wilt thou with sad, yet anxious yearning
Cling to those hopes which have no mortal birth.
Thou art gone from us, and with thee departed,
How many lovely things have vanished too:
Deep thoughts that at thy will to being started,
And feelings, teaching us our own were true.
Thou hast been round us, like a viewless spirit,
Known only by the music on the air;
The leaf or flowers which thou hast named inherit
A beauty known but from thy breathing there:
For thou didst on them fling thy strong emotion,
The likeness from itself the fond heart gave;
As planets from afar look down on ocean,
And give their own sweet image to the wave.
And thou didst bring from foreign lands their treasures,
As floats thy various melody along;
We know the softness of Italian measures,
And the grave cadence of Castilian song.
A general bond of union is the poet,
By its immortal verse is language known,
And for the sake of song do others know it—
One glorious poet makes the world his own.
And thou—how far thy gentle sway extended!
The heart’s sweet empire over land and sea;
Many a stranger and far flower was blended
In the soft wreath that glory bound for thee.
The echoes of the Susquehanna’s waters
Paused in the pine-woods words of thine to hear;
And to the wide Atlantic’s younger daughters
Thy name was lovely, and thy song was dear.
Was not this purchased all too dearly?—never
Can fame atone for all that fame hath cost.
We see the goal, but know not the endeavour
Nor what fond hopes have on the way been lost.
What do we know of the unquiet pillow,
By the worn cheek and tearful eyelid prest,
When thoughts chase thoughts, like the tumultuous billow,
Whose very light and foam reveals unrest?
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