C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Song from ‘The Assignation’

THOU wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine:

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers;

And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise

But to be overcast!

A voice from out the Future cries,

“Onward!”—but o’er the Past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,

Mute—motionless—aghast!

For alas! alas! with me

The light of life is o’er.

“No more—no more—no more”

(Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore)

“Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!”

Now all my hours are trances;

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy dark eye glances

And where thy footstep gleams,

In what ethereal dances,

By what Italian streams.

Alas for that accursed time

They bore thee o’er the billow,

From Love to titled age and crime,

And an unholy pillow!—

From me, and from our misty clime,

Where weeps the silver willow.