Alexander Smith (Александр Смит)
To —-
THE BROKEN moon lay in the autumn sky, And I lay at thy feet; You bent above me; in the silence I Could hear my wild heart beat. I spoke; my soul was full of trembling fears At what my words would bring: You rais’d your face, your eyes were full of tears, As the sweet eyes of Spring. You kiss’d me then, I worshipp’d at thy feet Upon the shadowy sod. Oh, fool, I lov’d thee! lov’d thee, lovely cheat! Better than Fame or God. My soul leap’d up beneath thy timid kiss; What then to me were groans, Or pain, or death? Earth was a round of bliss, I seem’d to walk on thrones. And you were with me ’mong the rushing wheels, ’Mid Trade’s tumultuous jars; And where to awe-struck wilds the Night reveals Her hollow gulfs of stars. Before your window, as before a shrine, I ’ve knelt ’mong dew-soak’d flowers, While distant music-bells, with voices fine, Measur’d the midnight hours. There came a fearful moment: I was pale, You wept, and never spoke, But clung around me as the woodbine frail Clings, pleading, round an oak. Upon my wrong I steadied up my soul, And flung thee from myself; I spurn’d thy love as ’t were a rich man’s dole,— It was my only wealth. I spurn’d thee! I, who lov’d thee, could have died, That hop’d to call thee “wife,” And bear thee, gently-smiling at my side, Through all the shocks of life! Too late, thy fatal beauty and thy tears, Thy vows, thy passionate breath; I ’ll meet thee not in Life, nor in the spheres Made visible by Death.
Alexander Smith’s other poems:
903
