Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/186

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 * Oh! wild, proud Clarence Vane!

You'll taunt me with this faithlessness,
 * Unknowing of this pain!

And we must meet in bitterness,
 * Who in full faith did part!

Why should I heed reproach or scorn
 * Breathed by thy lips of art?

And yet I knew that thy strong soul
 * Gives purest love to me—

Can I not tell a star in heaven
 * From a star in the sea?

I feel that did an angel sit
 * And smile upon my brow.

No holier your tenderness
 * Could be to me than now;

But still I cast that love away—
 * I banish my sweet trust—

I can not soil my soul's white wings
 * By stooping them to dust!

If your great mind has been for years
 * In earthly fetters bound—

If you have stooped your lofty flight.
 * Base fires to flutter round—

What! though from your soiled pinions
 * You shake the groveling weight:—

What! though you now soar to the stars,
 * I can not be your mate;

Ay! deck your glittering palace
 * With a lover's gentle pride—

And dream of wild devotion—
 * And murmur of your bride—

Oh! proud and passionate Clarence!
 * You will never call me wife!

Earth is mournful as the coffin,
 * And pale sorrow shrouds my life!"


 * The beautiful young mourner hid her face

In her small hands, and sank upon the earth.