Carisima

'Do YOU NOT KNOW I LOVE YOU? "—So you cried,
And blessed my lips with kisses multiplied,
Sweeter than those for which Adonis died—
Kisses that promised true love's long endurance;
While your dear eyes in mine my soul were reading,
With wistful, anxious, eager question pleading,
To know if I believed the sweet assurance.

YES, I DO KNOW YOU LOVE ME,"—I replied,
And in that love I am beatified;
It is my wealth, my glory, and my pride,
"The evening-glory of a clouded west:"—
Without it, earth were but a desert dreary,
Under life's burthens I should faint and weary,
And long to fall asleep and be at rest.

Darling! with what can I such love repay?
What can October give to delicate May?—
The afternoon hours of a waning day,
The saddening Autumn of Life's fading year.—
I can but give the love that sacrifices
Itself to bless the one it idolizes,—
Itself, and all delights to lovers dear.

Sad recollections of the shadowy years,
Of radiant hopes fainting to gloomy fears,
Of smiles and laughter dying into tears,
These, and no more, remain to me of life.
These and no more!—calamities and crosses,
Regrets and griefs, reverses, and the losses
That were the bitter fruits of civil strife.

Sad memories of lost loves and broken trust,
Kisses from lips long mouldered into dust,
Short lived delights that ended in disgust,—
These are the only treasures of the Past;
A Past of love, dreams, shadows, mirth and sadness,
Of hours of reason and long days of madness;
A morning-sky, with clouds soon overcast.

Youth, Beauty, Genins—more than queenly dower;
Over men's hearts a more than royal power;
The certainty of Fame's triumphal hour;
An hundred worshippers before your throne;—
How can you, rich with these divine largesses,
Value my love, or care for my caresses?—
And yet you are my darling and my own.

Like dark and rainy days on bitter sands
Or barren moors—long days in foreign lands,
To one who nothing spoken understands,
If I did doubt jour love, my life would be,—
Aimless and hopeless, like a vessel drifting,
Shattered by storm, before the unquiet, shifting,
Capricious winds, on a dark Northern sea.

Father in Heaven! I thank thee for the gift
Of this dear love, my grateful soul to lift
Out of the depths!—no more I, blinded, drift
Alone, in darkness, towards the frowning portal
Beyond whose folds no difference of age is,
Where those who love may read the same bright pages.
In the mysterious Book of Love immortal.