The First Love

The day once more within my memory livesWhen first I felt the affray of Love, and said:"Ah me, if this be Love, what pangs he gives!"Unto the earth I bent mine eyes and head,Beholding her from whom my heart did learnThe first and stainless passion whence it bled.Love, to dire goal thou didst my fancy turn!Why should so tender an affection stingWith such desire, such agonies that burn?Why not serene, and with unfettered wing,Why full of frenzy and of loud lamentInto my heart didst thou thy joyaunce bring?Tell me, my tender heart, what terror sentA shaft through thee, what anguish 'mid the thought,Beside which paled whate'er was once content?That thought by day with flattering pleasure fraught.By night as well, unto my mind appeared,When worlds the silence of deep shadows sought.Restless, yet happy, though to grief endeared,Thou on my pillows didst alarm my frameWith palpitations, every minute feared.And where I sad and grieved and weary cameTo close mine eyes in slumber, feverish fireAnd frenzy roused me, sleep could never tame.How 'mid the shades, the queen of my desireUprose with vivid splendour, and mine eyesGazed on her closed, the lids not rising higher!How many a thrill of sweet emotion fliesThrough my glad frame which joyous ardours seize!How many thoughts within my soul arise,Uncertain, undefined! Thus 'mid the treesOf ancient forests doth a murmur sound,Vague, deep of tone, in answer to the breeze.And whilst in silence all my thoughts were bound,What said'st thou, heart, when she went far away,For whom a world of passion thou hadst found?I scarce within me felt the heat a day,Arising from Love's furnace, when the airWhereon it came, to scenes remote did stray.At early dawn I lay in sleepless care;Before our house the horses pranced, ere longTo make me of my only joyaunce bare!And I, to whom misgivings vague belong,These orbs did idly in the shadows strain,And forced my hearing with an effort strongTo catch the voice, last token I could gainFrom the fair lips of her whom I revere:All else, alas! hath Heaven from me ta'en.How many a time struck on my doubtful earPlebean cries and accents, and I frozeIn all my frame, my heart appalled with fear!And when at last within my heart I closeThe voice so well beloved, and hear the raceOf wheels and horses as the carriage goes:Knowing myself despoiled, I hide my face,And shut mine eyes, and sink upon my bed,And sigh, and on my heart my hand I place.After a while with wavering limbs I treadAs one amazed, along the silent room,And "What power else hath struck my heart?" I said.Then the remembrance with most bitter gloomSettled within my bosom; and my soulBecame to all the scenes of life a tomb,And seas of anguish through my being roll,And I did feel as when the torrents drearPour from the clouds, and shades o'ercast the wholeSpace of the sky; nor born for many a tear,Knew I the youth of vanished years twice nine,When for all pleasure scorn alone was mine,Nor dear the quiet dawn or meadows greenOr joyous radiance of the stars that shine.The love of glory was no more the queenOf this my soul, which it before did burn,For love of beauty reigned there all serene.To wonted studies no more thoughts I turn,And those unto my fancy idle seemFor which all other thoughts I used to spurn.Ah! I myself another self must deemThat so much love another love hath ta'en!We are, in truth, vain as an empty dream!Only my heart did please me, and we twainIn an eternal dialogue immersed,I loved to sit, the guardian of my pain.Mine eyes bent on the ground or else inversedWithin myself, on lovely face to gazeOr on a form unpleasing, never durst:For the unspotted image to eraseThat dwelt within my bosom, much I feared,As calm lakes ruffle when the zephyr plays.And the remorse that not enough I cheeredMy heart with joy, a thought so full of painThat pleasures past it maketh unendeared,Rankled within me in the days that wane,For shame could not my cloudless soul appal,Nor hue of indignation my brow stain.To Heaven, to you, ye gentle lovers all,I swear no evil will did in me strive,None could my fire base and ignoble call.That fire yet lives, my love is yet alive,Still in my thought the beauteous image reigns,Whence other joys than from the skies derive,I never felt; enough content remains.