Page:The poetical works of Thomas Campbell.djvu/77
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57
To me; and our life's union has been clad
In smiles of bliss as sweet as life e'er had.
Shall gloom be from such bright remembrance cast?
Shall bitterness outflow from sweetness past?
No! imaged in the sanctuary of your breast,
There let me smile, amidst high thoughts at rest;
And let contentment on your spirit shine,
As if its peace were still a part of mine:
For if you war not proudly with your pain,
For you I shall have worse than lived in vain.
But I conjure your manliness to bear
My loss with noble spirit—not despair:
I ask you by our love to promise this,
And kiss these words, where I have left a kiss,—
The latest from my living lips for yours.'—
Words that will solace him while life endures:
For though his spirit from affliction's surge
Could ne'er to life, as life had been, emerge,
Yet still that mind whose harmony elate
Rang sweetness, ev'n beneath the crush of fate,—
That mind in whose regard all things were placed
In views that softened them, or lights that graced,
That soul's example could not but dispense
A portion of its own blessed influence;
Invoking him to peace, and that self-sway
Which Fortune cannot give, nor take away:
And though he mourned her long, 'twas with such woe
As if her spirit watched him still below."
In smiles of bliss as sweet as life e'er had.
Shall gloom be from such bright remembrance cast?
Shall bitterness outflow from sweetness past?
No! imaged in the sanctuary of your breast,
There let me smile, amidst high thoughts at rest;
And let contentment on your spirit shine,
As if its peace were still a part of mine:
For if you war not proudly with your pain,
For you I shall have worse than lived in vain.
But I conjure your manliness to bear
My loss with noble spirit—not despair:
I ask you by our love to promise this,
And kiss these words, where I have left a kiss,—
The latest from my living lips for yours.'—
Words that will solace him while life endures:
For though his spirit from affliction's surge
Could ne'er to life, as life had been, emerge,
Yet still that mind whose harmony elate
Rang sweetness, ev'n beneath the crush of fate,—
That mind in whose regard all things were placed
In views that softened them, or lights that graced,
That soul's example could not but dispense
A portion of its own blessed influence;
Invoking him to peace, and that self-sway
Which Fortune cannot give, nor take away:
And though he mourned her long, 'twas with such woe
As if her spirit watched him still below."