"Vain as the passing gale, my crying;Though lightning-struck, I must live on;I know, at heart, there is no dying Of love, and ruined hope, alone.
"Still strong and young, and warm with vigour, Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow;And many a storm of wildest rigour Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough.
"Rebellious now to blank inertion, My unused strength demands a task;Travel, and toil, and full exertion, Are the last, only boon I ask.
"Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming Of death, and dubious life to come?
I see a nearer beacon gleaming Over dejection's sea of gloom.
"The very wildness of my sorrow Tells me I yet have innate force;My track of life has been too narrow, Effort shall trace a broader course.
"The world is not in yonder tower, Earth is not prisoned in that room, 'Mid whose dark panels, hour by hour, I've sat, the slave and prey of gloom.
"One feeling--turned to utter anguish, Is not my being's only aim;When, lorn and loveless, life will languish, But courage can revive the flame.
"He, when he left me, went a roving To sunny climes, beyond the sea;And I, the weight of woe removing, Am free and fetterless as he.
"New scenes, new language, skies less clouded, May once more wake the wish to live;Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded, New pictures to the mind may give.
"New forms and faces, passing ever, May hide the one I still retain, Defined, and fixed, and fading never, Stamped deep on vision, heart, and brain.
"And we might meet--time may have changed him;Chance may reveal the mystery, The secret influence which estranged him;Love may restore him yet to me.
"False thought--false hope--in scorn be banished!
I am not loved--nor loved have been;Recall not, then, the dreams scarce vanished;Traitors! mislead me not again!
"To words like yours I bid defiance, 'Tis such my mental wreck have made;Of God alone, and self-reliance, I ask for solace--hope for aid.
"Morn comes--and ere meridian glory O'er these, my natal woods, shall smile, Both lonely wood and mansion hoary I'll leave behind, full many a mile."