LINES
        ON READING SOME VERSES ENTITLED "A FAREWELL TO LOVE."
 
        Oh, stern indeed must be that minstrel's heart,
            In the world's dusty highway doomed to move,
        Who with life's sunshine and its flowers can part,
            Who strikes his harp, and sings, Farewell to Love!
 
        To Love! that beam that colors all our light,
            As the red rays illume the light of day;
        Whose rose-hue, once extinguished from the sight,
            Leaves the life-landscape of a dull, cold gray.
 
        To Love! the ethereal, the Promethean spirit,
            That bids this dust with life divine be moved;
        The only memory that we still inherit
            Of the lost Eden where our parents roved.
 
        Oh, hopeless bard, recall that farewell strain,
            Nor from thy beast let this fond faith depart;
        Recall that utterance of thy cold disdain,
            Thy doubt of Love, the atheism of the heart.
 
        And on the altar reared within thy soul,
            Let the rekindled flame again aspire
        And guard it round by all things beautiful,
            As vestal forms watched o'er the sacred fire; --
 
        That fire that once extinguished on the shrine,
            Gave fearful sign of coming woe to Rome,
        As the quenched brightness of this light divine
            Forebodes to thee a dark and loveless doom.