Sad Thoughts

Yes, I am calm, am humbled now;
The storm is rocked to rest;

Yes, I am calm, am humbled now;
The storm is rocked to rest;
And I have learnt my head to bow,
And count my lot the best.

I would not struggle with my God,
Or chide what He has given:
Why should I murmur at the rod
That drives me on to heaven?

Yet withering thoughts at times will break
Across my calmer frame;
And then I feel how hearts may ache,
Though still they bow the same.

Dark moods, too long and fondly nursed,
Will o’er me come unsought:
And thou, ah thou, beloved the first,
To be the last forgot!

I meet thy pensive, moonlight face;
Thy thrilling voice I hear;
And former hours and scenes retrace,
Too fleeting, and too dear!

Then sighs and tears flow fast and free,
Though none is nigh to share;
And life has nought beside for me
So sweet as this despair.

There are crushed hearts that will not break;
And mine, methinks, is one;
Or thus I should not weep and wake,
And thou to slumber gone.

I little thought it thus could be
In days more sad and fair –
That earth could have a place for me,
And thou no longer there.

We met in childhood’s morning road;
Our love with life began;
And on through years the current flowed,
And deepened as it ran.

Yes: on we loved, and loved the same,
Though little either said:
It burned, that sad and secret flame,
Like lamps among the dead.

I know her heart was all my own;
She knew the same of mine;
Though caution gaurded every tone,
And checked each outward sign.

To selves or others unexpressed,
The truth within us waked –
A conscious wound in either breast,
That inly bled and ached.

At last it came, the day to part!
And feelings, long repressed,
In bitter shrift from heart to heart
Were all at length expressed.

That trying hour all barriers broke;
A frenzy o’er me fell:
Spirit to spirit briefly spoke,
And then – Farewell! farewell!

From that dark day I walked alone
In this wide world of care,
My widowed heart regardless grown
Of aught that wooed it there.

Its joys and griefs I learned to view
Without a smile or sigh;
And nought seemed left me now to do,
But lay me down and die.

Bereavement was not long her dower;
She feels no more its sway:
She pined, she drooped, my severed flower!
And passed from earth away.

No plaint she  breathed, no pain confessed,
But calmly fell asleep;
She stole into her grave for rest,
And left me here to weep.

While thou wert here, there was a hope,
All dimly as it shone:
‘Tis gone!  and I am left to cope
With this cold world alone.

Yet death cannot our hearts divide,
Or make thee less my own.
‘Twere sweeter sleeping at thy side
Than watching here alone.
Yet never, never can we part,

While Memory holds her reign:
Thine, thine is still this withered heart
Till we shall meet again.
That meet we shall, I do not fear:

The thought was joy to thee:
And I have now but little here
To part my God and me.
I feel, too, in my darkest mood,

How much my soul has won:
I know ’twas needful all, and good;
And say, “Thy will be done!’
Still thoughts like these at times will come,

My firmness to surprise.
When shall I be with thee at home,
Beyond the reach of sighs?
Henry Francis Lyte

1815