Poems (Eliza Gabriella Lewis)/To ——— (Star of my fate! my life—my love—my joy)

by Eliza Gabriella Lewis

For works with similar titles, see To ———.

TO ———

Star of my fate I my life—my love—my joy!
What endless toils thy weary hours employ!
What cares—what pleasures—win you thus to stay
Far from my heart, that chides thy long delay?

The chilling winter lives hut in the past,—
Soft swells its requiem on the moaning blast!
Exulting Zephyrs ride the passing gale,
And swell the canvass of the home-bound sail!

Lo! to the moaning breeze my voice I lend;
Ye Gods! I cry; Give back my wand'ring friend
If far from me, (by some.slow winding stream,)
He loves 'mid nature's solitudes to dream,—
Or with the fisher's cunning art, uncoils
The willing reel, ensnaring in his toils,
(Won by the gaudy fly, or luscious bait,)
The giddy fish swift rushing to its fate;—
Breathe thou, unto his heart, that once he joyed
In other arts, when love his thoughts employed!
Then the enchanting page, or converse gay,
Won him, all willingness, with me to slay.

Oh! say not he is false! that tale of wo—
Ye Gods!—in mercy to my heart, forego!
Tell me he lives! for me—for me alone!
Love lights his eyes, and breathes through every tone.

Those beaming orb?, those stars of my own skies,
Whose votary, with'ring in their absence, dies,
Bid them illume, once more my lonely night,
Nor banish me from that sweet source of light.