Love’s Lament

On night’s secrecy relying,
Silently I breathe my woes;
From the haunts of mortals flying,
Where the cup of pleasure flows.

Down my cheeks run tears all burning,
Silently, unceasingly;
But my bosom’s fiery yearning
Quench’ed by tears can never be.

When a laughing urchin, gaily
Many a merry game I play’d;
In life’s sunshine basking daily,
Knowing nought of grief or shade.

For a garden of enjoyment
Was the world I then lived in,
Tending flowers my sole employment,
Roses, violets, jessamine.

By the brook’s side, on the meadow,
Sweetly mused I in those days;
Now I see a pale thin shadow,
When upon the brook I gaze.

Pale and thin my grief hath made me,
Since mine eyes upon her fell;
Secret sorrows now pervade me,
Wonderful and hard to tell.

Deep within my heart I cherish’d
Angel forms of peace and love,
Which have fled, their short joys perish’d,
To their starry home above.

Ghastly shadows rise unbidden,
Black night round mine eyes is thrown;
In my trembling breast is hidden
A sad whisp’ring voice unknown.

Unknown sorrows, unknown anguish
Toss me wildly to and fro,
And I pine away and languish,
Tortured by an unknown glow.

But the cause why I am lying
Rack’d by fiery torments now,--
Why from very grief I’m dying,--
Love, behold!--The cause art thou!