“Ellen, I will no longer call you mine,
That time is past, and ne’er can come again;
[Pg 309]
However other lights undimmed may shine,
And undiminishing, one truth is plain,
Which I, alas! have learned,—that love can wane.
The dream is pass’d away, the veil is rent,
Your heart was not intended for my reign;
A sphere so full, I feel, was never meant
With one poor man in it to be content.
“It must, no doubt, be pleasant beyond measure,
To wander underneath the whispering bough
With Dian, a perpetual round of pleasure.
Nay, fear not,—I absolve of every vow,—
Use,—use your own celestial pleasure now,
Your apogee and perigee arrange.
Herschel might aptly stare and wonder how,
To me that constant disk has nothing strange—
A counterfeit is sometimes hard to change.
“Oh Ellen! I once little thought to write
Such words unto you, with so hard a pen;
Yet outraged love will change its nature quite,
And turn like tiger hunted to its den—
How Falsehood trips in her deceits on men!
And stands a............