Page:Rosalind and Helen (Shelley, Forman).djvu/26

24 And search the depth of its fair eyes For long departed memories! And so I lived till that sweet load Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed The stream of years, and on it bore Two shapes of gladness to my sight; Two other babes, delightful more In my lost soul's abandoned night, Than their own country ships may be Sailing towards wrecked mariners, Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea. For each, as it came, brought soothing tears, And a loosening warmth, as each one lay Sucking the sullen milk away About my frozen heart, did play, And weaned it, oh how painfully!— As they themselves were weaned each one From that sweet food,—even from the thirst Of death, and nothingness, and rest, Strange inmate of a living breast! Which all that I had undergone Of grief and shame, since she, who first The gates of that dark refuge closed, Came to my sight, and almost burst The seal of that Lethean spring; But these fair shadows interposed: