Classic Poem

Divided in our lives, and yet twin-hearted!
Our sad first parents shared a happier fate;
When, from Love's Eden, dearest, we departed,
'T was ours to sever at the outer gate.

Ah! yet I know, whatever path thou 'rt tracing,
Thy tearful eye is sometimes backward cast;
Thou art not coldly from thy heart effacing
The thrilling story of our blissful past, —

When life was like a sunset's glories blended
With all the waking splendors of the morn,
And when, dear love, if some light showers descended,
It seemed 't was but that rainbows might be born.

O warm! O beautiful! O glorious season!
Like the first blushing-time of Cashmere's roses!
My soul forgets cold truth, and worldly reason,
And in thy lap of languid joy reposes.

In reveries delicious I revisit
Each spot where love's impassioned tale was told;
Where moments passed of pleasure so exquisite,
Time should have marked their flight with sands of gold.

Again upon my throbbing breast thou 'rt leaning,
O fondly, wildly loved one! O adored!
Again come back thy words of tenderest meaning,
That once such transport through my bosom poured.

Again I feel the wish, intense and burning,
To live within thy life, to drink thine air;
That deep, mysterious, and mighty yearning
Would draw me down from heaven, wert thou not there.

A fount there was within each bosom flowing,
That gushed not water, but love's purple wine;
Sparkling with rapture, and with passion glowing,
It maketh mortals for a space divine.

'T was joy to know thee of that fountain drinking,
Within my heart, upspringing but for thee,
And I of thine as deeply, all unthinking
There might be madness in that draught for me!

When all of bliss the earth-born may inherit,
Divinely lavish, was around us thrown,
And when the mystic union of the spirit
Had twined our glowing beings into one, —

Then were we parted; Hope's ecstatic vision
Grew dim with tears, and Joy's young pinion furled;
Pillowed on flowers, we had a dream Elysian,
And we have wakened in a stormy world!

Gone, gone for ever! we beheld it vanish,
As a warm cloud melts in the blue above;
Yet from our souls no power create can banish
The golden memory of that dream of love!