Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/Separation
SEPARATION.
You've watch'd the lessening sail
That bore the friend away,
Till but a misty speck it seem'd
Upon the billowy bay;
The grating wheels you've mark'd
In their receding flight,
Like victors vaunting, as they took
Your treasure from your sight.
A sever'd tress you've hid
Next to your bosom's core,
A plant, the parting token, nursed
Till all its bloom was o'er;
Amid your choicest page
Some wither'd flow'ret prest,
That erst a prouder place maintain'd
Upon the dear one's breast.
You o'er the pencill'd brow
In solitude have hung,
And to the voiceless picture talk'd
With love's impassion'd tongue;
You've sought the favourite walk,
Green dell, or sea-girt shore,
And felt how deep the shade had fallen
On all that charm'd before:
Or to your secret bower
In lonely sadness stole,
To muse o'er hoarded word and smile,
Those jewels of the soul;
You've borne a precious name
Upon your soul-breathed prayer,
And at the threshold of the skies
Reposed your anxious care.
The unutter'd pang you've felt,
The bursting tear represt,
And shut the rankling anguish close
Within your burden'd breast;
Or worn the outward smile,
The hollow greeting said,
Till darkly on the springs of life
The smother'd sorrow fed.
To twine the spring-tide wreath,
And mourn o'er autumn's bier,
The hope to win, the joy to lose,
This is our history here;
To find the rose, whose bloom
Nor thorn nor blight hath riven,
To meet, and never more to part,
Is not of earth, but heaven.