Love's Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance

Like a lone Arab, old and blind,

   Some caravan had left behind,

   Who sits beside a ruin'd well,

   Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;

   And now he hangs his ag{'e}d head aslant,

   And listens for a human sound—in vain!

   And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,

   Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;—

   Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,

  Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,

  With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,

  I sate upon the couch of camomile;

  And—whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,

  Flitted across the idle brain, the while

  I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,

  In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,

  Turn'd my eye inward—thee, O genial Hope,

  Love's elder sister! thee did I behold

  Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,

  With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,

      Lie lifeless at my feet!

  And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,

      And stood beside my seat;

  She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,

      As she was wont to do;—

  Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath

  Woke just enough of life in death

      To make Hope die anew.

NOTES

Form:

irregular (couplets and quatrains)

Composition Date:

1833

1.

First published in Friendship's Offering for 1834,

signed \