A Fragment

Thou darest not love me! — thou canst only see
The great gulf set between us. Hadst thou love,
'T would bear thee o'er it on a wing of fire!
Wilt put from thy faint lip the mantling cup,
The draught thou 'st prayed for with divinest thirst,
For fear a poison in the chalice lurks?
Wilt thou be barred from thy soul's heritage,
The power, the rapture, and the crown of life,
By the poor guard of danger set about it?
I tell thee that the richest flowers of heaven
Bloom on the brink of darkness. Thou hast marked
How sweetly o'er the beetling precipice
Hangs the young June-rose with its crimson heart, —
And wouldst not sooner peril life to win
That royal flower, that thou mightst proudly wear
The trophy on thy breast, than idly pluck
A thousand meek-faced daisies by the way?
How dost thou shudder at Love's gentle tones,
As though a serpent's hiss were in thine ear,
Albeit thy heart throbs echo to each word!
Why wilt not rest, O weary wanderer,
Upon the couch of flowers Love spreads for thee,
On banks of sunshine? Voices silver-toned
Shall lull thy soul with strange, wild harmonies, —
Rock thee to sleep upon the waves of song;
Hope shall watch o'er thee with her breath of dreams;
Joy hover near, impatient for thy waking,
Her quick wing glancing through the fragrant air.

Why dost thou pause hard by the rose-wreathed gate,
Why turn thee from the paradise of youth,
Where love's immortal summer blooms and glows,
And wrap thyself in coldness as a shroud?
Perchance 't is well for thee, — yet does the flame
That glows with heat intense, and mounts toward heaven,
As fitly emblem holiest purity,
As the still snow-wreath on the mountain's brow.

Thou darest not say I love, and yet thou lovest,
And think'st to crush the mighty yearning down,
That in thy spirit shall upspring for ever!
Twinned with thy soul, it lived in thy first thoughts, —
It haunted with strange dreams thy boyish years,
And colored with its deep, empurpled hue
The passionate aspirations of thy youth.
Go, take from June her roses, — from her streams
The bubbling fountain-springs, — from life take love, —
Thou hast its all of sweetness, bloom, and strength.

There is a grandeur in the soul that dares
To live out all the life God lit within, —
That battles with the passions hand to hand,
And wears no mail, and hides behind no shield, —
That plucks its joy in the shadow of death's wing, —
That drains with one deep draught the wine of life,
And that with fearless foot and heaven-turned eye
May stand upon a dizzy precipice,
High o'er the abyss of ruin, and not fall!