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Ode to a Lady Whose Lover was Killed by a Ball Which at the Same Time Shivered a Portrait Next his Heart

  1. 1On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais
  2. 2il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu
  3. 3qu'une.--[Réflexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No.]
  1. 4Lady! in whose heroic port
  2. 5And Beauty, Victor even of Time,
  3. 6And haughty lineaments, appear
  4. 7Much that is awful, more that's dear--
  5. 8Wherever human hearts resort
  6. 9There must have been for thee a Court,
  7. 10And Thou by acclamation Queen,
  8. 11Where never Sovereign yet had been.
  9. 12That eye so soft, and yet severe,
  10. 13Perchance might look on Love as Crime;
  11. 14And yet--regarding thee more near--
  12. 15The traces of an unshed tear
  13. 16Compressed back to the heart,
  14. 17And mellowed Sadness in thine air,
  15. 18Which shows that Love hath once been there,
  16. 19To those who watch thee will disclose
  17. 20More than ten thousand tomes of woes
  18. 21Wrung from the vain Romancer's art.
  19. 22With thee how proudly Love hath dwelt!
  20. 23His full Divinity was felt,
  21. 24Maddening the heart he could not melt,
  22. 25Till Guilt became Sublime;
  23. 26But never yet did Beauty's Zone
  24. 27For him surround a lovelier throne,
  25. 28Than in that bosom once his own:
  26. 29And he the Sun and Thou the Clime
  27. 30Together must have made a Heaven
  28. 31For which the Future would be given.
  1. 32And thou hast loved--Oh! not in vain!
  2. 33And not as common Mortals love.
  3. 34The Fruit of Fire is Ashes,
  4. 35The Ocean's tempest dashes
  5. 36Wrecks and the dead upon the rocky shore:
  6. 37True Passion must the all-searching changes prove,
  7. 38The Agony of Pleasure and of Pain,
  8. 39Till Nothing but the Bitterness remain;
  9. 40And the Heart's Spectre flitting through the brain
  10. 41Scoffs at the Exorcism which would remove.
  1. 42And where is He thou lovedst? in the tomb,
  2. 43Where should the happy Lover be!
  3. 44For him could Time unfold a brighter doom,
  4. 45Or offer aught like thee?
  5. 46He in the thickest battle died,
  6. 47Where Death is Pride;
  7. 48And Thou his widow--not his bride,
  8. 49Wer't not more free--
  9. 50Here where all love, till Love is made
  10. 51A bondage or a trade,
  11. 52Here--thou so redolent of Beauty,
  12. 53In whom Caprice had seemed a duty,
  13. 54Thou, who could'st trample and despise
  14. 55The holiest chain of human ties
  15. 56For him, the dear One in thine eyes,
  16. 57Broke it no more.
  17. 58Thy heart was withered to it's Core,
  18. 59It's hopes, it's fears, it's feelings o'er:
  19. 60Thy Blood grew Ice when his was shed,
  20. 61And Thou the Vestal of the Dead.
  1. 62Thy Lover died, as All
  2. 63Who truly love should die;
  3. 64For such are worthy in the fight to fall
  4. 65Triumphantly.
  5. 66No Cuirass o'er that glowing heart
  6. 67The deadly bullet turned apart:
  7. 68Love had bestowed a richer Mail,
  8. 69Like Thetis on her Son;
  9. 70But hers at last was vain, and thine could fail--
  10. 71The hero's and the lover's race was run.
  11. 72Thy worshipped portrait, thy sweet face,
  12. 73Without that bosom kept it's place
  13. 74As Thou within.
  14. 75Oh! enviously destined Ball!
  15. 76Shivering thine imaged charms and all
  16. 77Those Charms would win:
  17. 78Together pierced, the fatal Stroke hath gored
  18. 79Votary and Shrine, the adoring and the adored.
  19. 80That Heart's last throb was thine, that blood
  20. 81Baptized thine Image in it's flood,
  21. 82And gushing from the fount of Faith
  22. 83O'erflowed with Passion even in Death,
  23. 84Constant to thee as in it's hour
  24. 85Of rapture in the secret bower.
  25. 86Thou too hast kept thy plight full well,
  26. 87As many a baffled Heart can tell.