THE PARTING. BY T. K. HERVEY. THE night is lowering, dull and dark, Oh! that a wish could chain the gales, That flap around the mast! Oh! that no ray might ever rise, To light her latest sacrifice! There are they met-the young and fond- That such should ever meet to part! One hour is theirs, and all beyond A chaos of the heart: She hears him yet-his softest sigh The breathing of his lowest word- Shall never more be heard; Form, voice, that hour-all, save its sorrow Shall be but memories on the morrow! He is her all who bends above, Her hope-the brightest, and the last ; Oh! that the days life gives to love What gleam upon their startled eyes Breaks, like the flash from angry heaven ? And, o'er their spirits, all grows night, The moon is forth,-but sad and pale, The breeze is up,-the sail unfurled The bark is tossing in the bay, The streamers point away-away! One kiss of lips as wan and cold As life to them shall, henceforth, be; One glance--the glance that makes us old, Of utter agony; One throb--the bitterest and the last, In hearts that, when that pang is past, Shall never ache again ; And the loosed cord,-the broken bowl, Lie at hope's fountain, in the soul. |