Classic Poem

Etheline - Book 4, Part 11

11.

As light, when noon puts darkness on,
Gilds a wan rose, and disappears;
So Telma, smiling on his tears,
Turns from her Konig — and is gone.
He gasps, he bids the vision stay;
His heart hath years of thought to say.
What would'st thou clasp? and whom address
Here smiles no lov'd one's loveliness.
The stirless air, the lake at rest,
The light and silence on its breast,
The sleeping cloud, the sleeping tree,
The music of the busy bee,
The tremble of the lifted leaf;
And one vain mortal — bow'd with grief,
As if on his crush'd heart had come,
With all their weight of guilty fears,
The burden of a thousand years;
And on his cheek, and youthful bloom,
The stain of an eternal tear;
These only (and thy God!) are here.English