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The Forsaken Merman

They build a wall between us twain,
Which may not be thrown down again,
Alas! for I, the long years through,
Have loved you better than you knew.

Your life's proud aim, your art's high truth,
Have kept the promise of your youth;

And while you won the crown, which now
Breaks into bloom upon your brow,
My soul cried strongly out to you
Across the ocean's yearning blue,
While, unremembered and afar,
I watched you, as I watch a star
Through darkness struggling into view,
And loved you better than you knew.

I used to dream in all these years
Of patient faith and silent tears,

That Love's strong hand would put aside
The barriers of place and pride,

Would reach the pathless darkness through,

And draw me softly up to you;

But that is past. If you should stray

Beside my grave, some future day,

Perchance the violets o'er my dust

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Will half betray their buried trust,
And say, their blue eyes full of dew,
"She loved you better than you knew."

Elizabeth Akers [1832-1911]

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN

COME, dear children, let us away;

Down and away below!

Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Down, down, down!

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,

Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,

From the humming street, and the child with its toy!

From the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;

From the wheel where I spun,

And the blessed light of the sun!"

And so she sings her fill,

Singing most joyfully,

Till the spindle drops from her hand,

And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,

And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare,
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,

A long, long sigh;

For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,

And the gleam of her golden hair.

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The Portrait

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But, children, at midnight,

When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starred with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanched sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie;
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.

We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hillside-
And then come back down.

Singing: "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea."

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

THE PORTRAIT

MIDNIGHT past! Not a sound of aught

Through the silent house, but the wind at his prayers.

I sat by the dying fire, and thought

Of the dear dead woman up-stairs.

A night of tears! for the gusty rain

Had ceased, but the eaves were dripping yet; And the moon looked forth, as though in pain, With her face all white and wet:

Nobody with me, my watch to keep,

But the friend of my bosom, the man I love: And grief had sent him fast to sleep

In the chamber up above.

Nobody else, in the country place

All round, that knew of my loss beside,

But the good young Priest with the Raphael-face, Who confessed her when she died.

That good young Priest is of gentle nerve,

And my grief had moved him beyond control;

For his lip grew white, as I could observe,
When he speeded her parting soul.

I sat by the dreary hearth alone:

I thought of the pleasant days of yore:
I said, "The staff of my life is gone:
The woman I loved is no more.

"On her cold dead bosom my portrait lies,
Which next to her heart she used to wear-
Haunting it o'er with her tender eyes
When my own face was not there.

"It is set all round with rubies red,

And pearls which a Peri might have kept. For each ruby there my heart hath bled: For each pearl my eyes have wept."

And I said "The thing is precious to me:
They will bury her soon in the churchyard clay;
It lies on her heart, and lost must be

If I do not take it away."

I lighted my lamp at the dying flame,

And crept up the stairs that creaked for fright, Till into the chamber of death I came,

Where she lay all in white.

The moon shone over her winding-sheet,
There stark she lay on her carven bed:
Seven burning tapers about her feet,
And seven about her head.

The Portrait

As I stretched my hand, I held my breath;

I turned as I drew the curtains apart:
I dared not look on the face of death:
I knew where to find her heart.

I thought at first, as my touch fell there,
It had warmed that heart to life, with love;
For the thing I touched was warm, I swear,
And I could feel it move.

'Twas the hand of a man, that was moving slow

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O'er the heart of the dead,--from the other side: And at once the sweat broke over my brow: "Who is robbing the corpse?" I cried.

Opposite me by the tapers' light,

The friend of my bosom, the man I loved, Stood over the corpse, and all as white,

And neither of us moved.

"What do you here, my friend?". . . The man
Looked first at me, and then at the dead.
"There is a portrait here," he began:

"There is. It is mine," I said.

Said the friend of my bosom, "Yours, no doubt,
The portrait was, till a month ago,
When this suffering angel took that out,
And placed mine there, I know."

"This woman, she loved me well," said I.
"A month ago," said my friend to me:
"And in your throat," I groaned, “you lie!”
He answered, . . . "Let us see."

"Enough!" I returned, "let the dead decide:
And whosesoever the portrait prove,
His shall it be, when the cause is tried,
Where Death is arraigned by Love."

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