Letitia Landon in Pictorial Album; or, Cabinet of Paintings for the year 1837/Zenobia
|
ZENOBIA.
Painted in Oil Colours by G. Baxter (Patentee) from a Painting by W. Pickersgill R. A.
LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, STRAND.
ZENOBIA.
Oh wild wind, bring me back a sound;
I listen and in vain;
I might, but for my beating heart,
Have heard his step again.
He flung him on his chestnut steed;
How gallantly he rides!
How well his graceful Arab seems
To know the hand that guides!
Why did he not look back? 'Tis well—
He must not meet my gaze;
I shame me of the anxious heart
That so itself betrays.
Lie there, oh rose! it was his hand
That flung thee careless by;
I would not change a single thing
That may have met his eye.
Be hushed my lute! I know a tone
More silvery and more dear;
I would not have a sound disturb
The voice within my ear.
Him only on the wide green earth,
Him in the sky above;
To me the world has but these words,
I love him—how I love!
From the first hour I met his eyes
Another life began;
Till then, a calm untroubled stream,
My life's young current ran.
But now 'tis stirred with passionate thought,
With many hopes and fears;
The first too tremulous for joy,
The last too sweet for tears.
I wait his coming till my eyes,
That watch, too soon are dim;
I strive to think of other things—
I only think of him.
I seem to have, before he comes,
So much I want to say;
I see him, and my gathered words
Melt like a dream away.
I feel the light within my eyes,
The colour on my cheek;
My life beats till I cannot breathe,
I am too glad to speak.
He goes—it is the setting sun
That leaves the world in night;
Pale, faint, I lean against the wall—
My life has lost its light.
I sleep—his name is on my lips,
It murmurs through my dreams,
And present with the waking day
His early image seems.
Love is a fearful thing—a love
So fervent and so fond,
That has no other hope in life,
And dares not look beyond.
Ah, every cause for which I love,
A cause of fear must be:
So proud, so worshipped, can he waste
A single thought on me?
I would lay down my life, so he
My soul's deep fondness knew;
Alas! I can but dream of all
I have not power to do.
To see him, hear him, is enough
For happiness to crave;
I would not be a crowned queen
So I might be his slave.
What has the wide world in its bounds
That I would not resign
For the sweet empire of his heart,
To win and keep it mine?