The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 98

ABSENT, YET PRESENT.

As the flight of a river That flows to the sea, My soul rushes ever In tumult to thee.

A twofold existence I am where thou art; My heart in the distance Beats close to thy heart.

Look up, I am near thee, I gaze on thy face; I see thee, I hear thee, I feel thine embrace.

As a magnet's control on The steel it draws to it, Is the charm of thy soul on The thoughts that pursue it.

And absence but brightens The eyes that I miss, And custom but heightens The spell of thy kiss.

It is not from duty, Though that may be owed,-- It is not from beauty, Though that be bestow'd;

But all that I care for, And all that I know, Is that, without wherefore, I worship thee so.

Through granite as breaketh A tree to the ray, As a dreamer forsaketh The grief of the day,

My soul in its fever Escapes unto thee; O dream to the griever, O light to the tree!

A twofold existence I am where thou art; Hark, hear in the distance The beat of my heart!

LOVERS' QUARRELS.

AN OLD MAXIM REFUTED.

They never loved as thou and I, Who preach'd the laughing moral, That aught which deepens love can lie In true love's lightest quarrel.

They never knew, in times of fear, The safety of affection, Nor sought, when angry fate drew near, Love's altar for protection.

They never knew how kindness grows A vigil and a care, Nor watch'd beside the heart's repose In silence and in prayer;

For weaker love be storms enough To frighten back desire; We have no need of gales so rough To fan our steadier fire.

'Twere sweet to kiss thy tears away, If tears those eyes must know; But sweeter still to hear thee say, "Thou never badst them flow."

The wrongful word will rankling live When wrong itself has ceased, And love, that all things may forgive, Can ne'er forget the least.

If pain can not from life depart, There's pain enough around us; The rose we wear upon the heart Should have no thorn to wound us.

And hollow sounds the wildest vow, If memory wake, the while, The bitter taunt--the darken'd brow, The stinging of a smile.

There is no anguish like the hour, Whatever else befall us, When one the heart has raised to power Exerts it but to gall us.

Yet if--this calm too blest to last-- Some cloud, at times, must be, I'm not so proud but I would cast The fault alone on me.

So deeply blent with thy dear thought, All faith in human kindness, Methinks if thou couldst change in aught, The only bliss were blindness.

But no--if rapture may not last, It ne'er shall bring regret, Nor leave one look in all the past 'Twere mercy to forget.

Repentance often finds, too late, To wound us is to harden; And love is on the verge of hate, Each time it stoops for pardon.

THE LAST SEPARATION.

We shall not rest together, love, When death has wrench'd my heart from thine; The sun may smile thy grave above, When clouds are dark on mine!

I know not why, since in the tomb No instinct fires the silent heart-- And yet it seems a thought of gloom, That even dust should part;

That, journeying through the toilsome past, Thus hand in hand and side by side, The rest we reach should, at the last, The shapes we wore divide;

That the same breezes should not sigh The self-same funeral boughs among,-- Nor o'er one grave, at daybreak, die The night-bird's lonely song!

A foolish thought! the spirit goal Is not where matter wastes away; If soul at last regaineth soul, What boots it where the dust decay?

A foolish thought, yet human too!

For love is not the soul's alone: It winds around the form we woo-- The mortal we have known!

The eyes that speak such tender truth, The lips that every care a.s.suage, The hand that thrills the heart in youth, And smoothes the couch in age;

With these--The Human,--human love Will twine its thoughts and weave its doom, And still confound the life above With death beneath the tomb!

And who shall tell, in yonder skies, What earthlier instincts we retain; What link, to souls released, supplies The old material chain?

The stars that pierced this darksome state May fade in that meridian sh.o.r.e; And human love, like human hate, Be memory--and no more!

Away the doubt! alas, how cold Would all the promised heaven appear, Did yearning love no more behold What made its Eden here!

But wheresoe'er the spirit flies, It haunts us in the shape it wore; We give the angel in the skies The mortal's smile of yore;

Yet, ah, when souls from life escape, Material forms no more they know; Not Heaven itself restores the shape So fondly loved below!

Immortal spirits meet above; But mine is still the human heart; And in its faithful human love, It mourns that dust should part!

THE POPE AND THE BEGGAR.

THE DESIRES THE CHAINS, THE DEEDS THE WINGS.