Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/74

64 And, calm in conscience, whole in heart,

I went my tranquil way.

Yet, sometimes, I still feel a wish,

The fond and flattering pain

Of passion's anguish to create,

In her young breast again.

Bright was the lustre of her eyes,

When they caught fire from mine;

If I had power—this very hour,

Again I'd light their shine.

But where she is, or how she lives,

I have no clue to know;

I've heard she long my absence pined,

And left her home in woe.

But busied, then, in gathering gold,

As I am busied now,

I could not turn from such pursuit,

To weep a broken vow.

Nor could I give to fatal risk

The fame I ever prized;

Even now, I fear, that precious fame

Is too much compromised."

An inward trouble dims his eye,

Some riddle he would solve;

Some method to unloose a knot,

His anxious thoughts revolve.