Ode to a Lady Whose Lover Was Killed by a Ball, Which at the Same Time Shivered a Portrait Next His Heart

On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, maisil est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais euqu'une.--[Réflexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No.lxxiii.

Lady! in whose heroic port5And Beauty, Victor even of Time,And haughty lineaments, appearMuch that is awful, more that's dear--Wherever human hearts resortThere must have been for thee a Court,10And Thou by acclamation Queen,Where never Sovereign yet had been.That eye so soft, and yet severe,Perchance might look on Love as Crime;And yet--regarding thee more near--15The traces of an unshed tearCompressed back to the heart,And mellowed Sadness in thine air,Which shows that Love hath once been there,To those who watch thee will disclose20More than ten thousand tomes of woesWrung from the vain Romancer's art.With thee how proudly Love hath dwelt!His full Divinity was felt,Maddening the heart he could not melt,25Till Guilt became Sublime;But never yet did Beauty's ZoneFor him surround a lovelier throne,Than in that bosom once his own:And he the Sun and Thou the Clime30Together must have made a HeavenFor which the Future would be given.

And thou hast loved--Oh! not in vain!And not as common Mortals love.The Fruit of Fire is Ashes,35The Ocean's tempest dashesWrecks and the dead upon the rocky shore:True Passion must the all-searching changes prove,The Agony of Pleasure and of Pain,Till Nothing but the Bitterness remain;40And the Heart's Spectre flitting through the brainScoffs at the Exorcism which would remove.

And where is He thou lovedst? in the tomb,Where should the happy Lover be!For him could Time unfold a brighter doom,45Or offer aught like thee?He in the thickest battle died,Where Death is Pride;And Thou his widow--not his bride,Wer't not more free--50Here where all love, till Love is madeA bondage or a trade,Here--thou so redolent of Beauty,In whom Caprice had seemed a duty,Thou, who could'st trample and despise55The holiest chain of human tiesFor him, the dear One in thine eyes,Broke it no more.Thy heart was withered to it's Core,It's hopes, it's fears, it's feelings o'er:60Thy Blood grew Ice when his was shed,And Thou the Vestal of the Dead.

Thy Lover died, as AllWho truly love should die;For such are worthy in the fight to fall65Triumphantly.No Cuirass o'er that glowing heartThe deadly bullet turned apart:Love had bestowed a richer Mail,Like Thetis on her Son;70But hers at last was vain, and thine could fail--The hero's and the lover's race was run.Thy worshipped portrait, thy sweet face,Without that bosom kept it's placeAs Thou within.75Oh! enviously destined Ball!Shivering thine imaged charms and allThose Charms would win:Together pierced, the fatal Stroke hath goredVotary and Shrine, the adoring and the adored.80That Heart's last throb was thine, that bloodBaptized thine Image in it's flood,And gushing from the fount of FaithO'erflowed with Passion even in Death,Constant to thee as in it's hour85Of rapture in the secret bower.Thou too hast kept thy plight full well,As many a baffled Heart can tell.