Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/166

162 To wish I could behold thee once again.

Day after day, I've trod these shores with hope

That once you would return to your old haunts,

And I might look on you from my retreat.

Azlea. Hermon, O why pursue me?

Is not my life poisoned with thoughts of thee?

Do you not, now you view me,

The work of weariness and sorrow see?

Her. Thou thinkest of me, Azlea, but thy thoughts

Are cold and shrinking—not of tenderness.

Why mock me with the mention of such thoughts?

Vainly and long I've striven, until I

Can strive no longer; and my only hope

Is in thy pitying gentleness. Then

Think of me as of earth's other children;

Sinful, 'tis true, but not without a hope

That Heaven will pardon, wilt thou but only save.

Azlea.Hermon, I see thee ever,

Like a dark spirit, filling every vision;

Making my heart's blood shiver

With thy dark smile, and lip of wild derision.

Thine eyes, so stern and strange,

Burn through night's darkness, and out-glare the day;

Nor time, nor place, nor change,

Dims the wild brightness of their haunting ray.

Thou art become a fear—

A dim and shadowy terror everywhere

Filling the atmosphere,

Whose power I can not banish, even in prayer!

Her. Forbear! say not again those maddening words!

They stir within my bosom hotter fires

Than burn in the dominions of eternal death!

If thou hast seen me, Azlea, in thy dreams,

Waking and sleeping, 'twas because my soul