From The New Yorker, 23rd December 1837, page 629
From the Flowers of Loveliness for 1838.
THE LAUREL.(*)
'Fling down the Laurel from her golden hair;
A woman's brow:—what doth the laurel there?'
Not to the silent bitterness of tears
Do I commit, oh, false one! thy requiting;
My measured moments shall be paid by years
Of long avenging on thy faithless slighting.
I call upon the boon that nature gave,
Ere my young spirit knew its own possessing;
And, from the fire that has consumed me, crave
The cold, stern power that knows its own redressing.
Love was my element: e'en as the bird
Knows the soft air that swells around its pinion,
Sweet thoughts and eager ones my spirit stirred,
Whose only influence was the heart's dominion.
They were but shadows of a deeper power,
For life is ominous, itself revealing
By the faint likeness of the coming hour,
Felt ere it vivify to actual feeling.
But from that fated hour is no return;
Life has grown actual—we have done with dreaming;
It is a bitter truth at last to learn
That all we once believed was only seeming.
Thou who hast taught me this! upon thy head
Be all the evils thou hast round thee scattered;
Through thee the light that led me on is dead—
My wreath is in the dust—my lute is shattered.
I could forgive each miserable night
When I have waked, for that I dreaded sleeping;
I knew that I should dream—my fevered sight
Would bring the image I afar was keeping.
Alas, the weary hours! when I have asked
The faint cold stars, amid the darkness shining.
Why is mortality so overtasked?—
Why am I grown familiar with repining?—
