Stanzas to Augusta
When all around grew drear and dark,And reason half withheld her ray--And Hope but shed a dying sparkWhich more misled my lonely way;In that deep midnight of the mind,And that internal strife of heart,When dreading to be deemed too kind,The weak despair--the cold depart;When Fortune changed--and Love fled far,And Hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,Thou wert the solitary starWhich rose and set not to the last.Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!That watched me as a Seraph's eye,And stood between me and the night,For ever shining sweetly nigh.And when the cloud upon us came,Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray--Then purer spread its gentle flame,And dashed the darkness all away.Still may thy Spirit dwell on mine,And teach it what to brave or brook--There's more in one soft word of thineThan in the world's defied rebuke.Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,That still unbroke, though gently bent,Still waves with fond fidelityIts boughs above a monument.The winds might rend--the skies might pour,But there thou wert--and still wouldst beDevoted in the stormiest hourTo shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.But thou and thine shall know no blight,Whatever fate on me may fall;For Heaven in sunshine will requiteThe kind--and thee the most of all.Then let the ties of baffled loveBe broken--thine will never break;Thy heart can feel--but will not move;Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.And these, when all was lost beside,Were found and still are fixed in thee:--And bearing still a breast so tried,Earth is no desert--ev'n to me.
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