And life has nobler uses

Than Regret.

All past words retracing,
One by one,

Does not help effacing

What is done.

Let it be. Oh, stronger

Links can break!

Had we dreamed still longer

We could wake,

Yet let us part in kindness
For Love's sake.

Bitterness and sorrow

Will at last,

In some bright to-morrow,

Heal their past;

But future hearts will never

Be as true

As mine was-is ever,

Dear, for you.

. . Then must we part, when loving

As we do?

PAST AND PRESENT.

INGER," I cried, "oh radiant Time!

thy power

Has nothing more to give; life is complete:

Let but the perfect Present, hour by hour,
Itself remember and itself repeat.

"And Love, the future can but mar its splendour,
Change can but dim the glory of its youth;
Time has no star more faithful or more tender,
To crown its constancy or light its truth."

But Time passed on in spite of prayer or pleading, Through storm and peril; but that life might gain A Peace through strife all other peace exceeding, Fresh joy from sorrow, and new hope from pain.

And since Love lived when all save Love was dying, And, passed through fire, grew stronger than before:

Dear, you know why, in double faith relying,

I prize the Past much, but the Present more.

FOR THE FUTURE.

WONDER did you ever count

The value of one human fate;
Or sum the infinite amount

Of one heart's treasures, and the weight

Of Life's one venture, and the whole concentrate purof a soul.

pose

And if you ever paused to think

That all this in your hands I laid

Without a fear:-did you not shrink

From such a burthen? half afraid,

Half wishing that you could divide the risk, or cast it all aside.

While Love has daily perils, such

As none foresee and none control;

And hearts are strung so that one touch,
Careless or rough, may jar the whole,

You well might feel afraid to reign with absolute power of joy and pain.

You well might fear-if Love's sole claim

Were to be happy: but true Love

Takes joy as solace, not as aim,

And looks beyond, and looks above; And sometimes through the bitterest strife first learns

to live her highest life.

Earth forges joy into a chain

Till fettered Love forgets its strength,
Its purpose, and its end;-but Pain

Restores its heritage at length,

And bids Love rise again and be eternal, mighty, pure, and free.

If then your future life should need
A strength my Love can only gain
Through suffering, or my heart be freed

Only by sorrow, from some stain

Then you shall give, and I will take, this Crown of fire for Love's dear sake.

Sept. 8th, 1860.

CHISWICK PRESS-PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.