Poems (E. L. F.)/Dreamy lines

by E. L. F.

DREAMY LINES.

1846.
The heart is not always gay,
 Though the sun shines brightly o'er us;
And the flush of the new-born day
 Tells of the joys before us.

There will come, from the spirit's cell,
 A shade o'er the trembling heart;
And we cannot tell whence, or how,
 But 1t darkens life's better part.

And the tear or the sigh will take
 Its tone from the saddened soul,
Till the spirit of beauty wake
 The heart 'neath its soft control.

The mind, in its weariness, feels
 The weight of a loneliness deep:
Oh! what is this spirit that steals
 From the bosom its loveliest sleep?

I know not: but yet I have felt
 This sadness the voice cannot tell;
And the gloom o'er my spirit dwelt
 With a weary and heart-sick'ning spell.

There are bosoms that never throbbed—
 There are hearts that never knew
This hour of the shadowing forth,
 Sad heritage of the few.

Oh! are there not griefs enough%
 Real, living, sad as true—
That the heart claims kindred with,
 But mind must create anew?

But such is my spirit's frame—
 This shade o'er my heart's young life;
And the past and the present agree
 To tell of the future's strife.