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ANOTHER SCENE.

INDIAN YOUTH AND LADY.

INDIAN:
And, if my grief should still be dearer to me
Than all the pleasures in the world beside,
Why would you lighten it?–

[NOTE:
29 pleasures]pleasure 1824.]

LADY:
I offer only 30
That which I seek, some human sympathy
In this mysterious island.

INDIAN:
Oh! my friend,
My sister, my beloved!–What do I say?
My brain is dizzy, and I scarce know whether
I speak to thee or her.

LADY:
Peace, perturbed heart! 35
I am to thee only as thou to mine,
The passing wind which heals the brow at noon,
And may strike cold into the breast at night,
Yet cannot linger where it soothes the most,
Or long soothe could it linger.

INDIAN:
But you said 40
You also loved?

[NOTE:
32-41 Assigned to INDIAN, 1824.]

LADY:
Loved! Oh, I love. Methinks
This word of love is fit for all the world,
And that for gentle hearts another name
Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns.
I have loved.

INDIAN:
And thou lovest not? if so, 45
Young as thou art thou canst afford to weep.

LADY:
Oh! would that I could claim exemption
From all the bitterness of that sweet name.
I loved, I love, and when I love no more
Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair 50
To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,
The embodied vision of the brightest dream,
Which like a dawn heralds the day of life;
The shadow of his presence made my world
A Paradise. All familiar things he touched, 55
All common words he spoke, became to me
Like forms and sounds of a diviner world.
He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,
As terrible and lovely as a tempest;
He came, and went, and left me what I am. 60
Alas! Why must I think how oft we two
Have sate together near the river springs,
Under the green pavilion which the willow
Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain,
Strewn, by the nurslings that linger there, 65
Over that islet paved with flowers and moss,
While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,
Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine,
Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own?
The crane returned to her unfrozen haunt, 70
And the false cuckoo bade the spray good morn;
And on a wintry bough the widowed bird,
Hid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves,
Renewed the vigils of a sleepless sorrow.
I, left like her, and leaving one like her, 75
Alike abandoned and abandoning
(Oh! unlike her in this!) the gentlest youth,
Whose love had made my sorrows dear to him,
Even as my sorrow made his love to me!