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THE LADY OF LA GARAYE.
A THRENODY.
- HOW Memory haunts us! When we fain would be
- Alone and free,
- Uninterrupted by his mournful words,
- Faint, indistinct, as are a wind‐harp’s chords
- Hung on a leafless tree,—
- He will not leave us: we resolve in vain
- To chase him forth—for he returns again,
- Pining incessantly!
- In the old pathways of our lost delights
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- He walks on sunny days and starlit nights,
- Answering our restless moan,
- With,—“I am here alone,
- My brother Joy is gone—for ever gone!
- Round your decaying home
- The Spring indeed is come,
- The leaves are thrilling with a sense of life,
- The sap of flowers is rife,
- But where is Joy, Heaven’s messenger,—bright Joy,—
- That curled and radiant boy,
- Who was the younger brother of my heart?
- Why let ye him whom I so loved depart?
- Call him once more,
- And let us all be glad, as heretofore!”
- Then, urged and stung by Memory, we go forth,
- And wander south and north,
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- Deeming Joy may yet answer to our yearning;
- But all is blank and bare:
- The silent air
- Echoes no pleasant shout of his returning.
- Yet somewhere—somewhere, by the pathless woods,
- Or silver rippling floods,
- He wanders as he wandered once with us;
- Through bright arcades of cities populous;
- Or else in deserts rude,
- Happy in solitude,
- And choosing only Youth to be his mate,
- He leaves us to our fate.
- We hear his distant laughter as we go,
- Pacing, ourselves, with Woe,—
- Both us he hath outstripped for evermore!
- Seek him not in the wood,
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- Where the sweet ring‐doves ever murmuring brood;
- Nor on the hill, nor by the golden shore:
- Others inherit that which once was ours;
- The freshness of the hours,—
- The sparkling of the early morning rime,
- The evanescent glory of the time!
- With them, in some sweet glade,
- Warm with a summer shade,
- Or where white clover, blooming fresh and wild,
- Breathes like the kisses of a little child,
- He lingers now:—we call him back in vain
- To our world’s snow and rain;
- The bower we built him when he was our guest
- Life’s storms have beaten down,
- And he far off hath flown,
- And buildeth where there is a sunnier nest;
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- Or, closing rainbow wings and laughing eyes,
- He lieth basking ’neath the open skies,
- Taking his rest
- On the soft moss of some unbroken ground,
- Where sobs did never sound.
- Oh! give him up: confess that Joy has gone:
- He met you at the source of Life’s bright river;
- And if he hath passed on,
- ’Tis that his task is done,
- He hath no future message to deliver,
- But leaves you lone and still for ever and for ever!
