ClassicTreasures V

The Tear

When Friendship or Love

Our sympathies move;

When Truth, in a glance, should appear,

The lips may beguile,

With a dimple or smile,

But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile

But the hypocrite's wile,

To mask destestation, or fear;

Give me the soft sigh,

Whilst the soultelling eye

is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity's glow,

To us mortals below,

Shows the soul from barbarity clear;

Compassion will melt,

Where this virtue is felt,

And its dew is diffused in a Tear:

The man, doom'd to sail

With the blast of a gale,

Through billows Atlantic to steer,

As he bends o'er the wave

Which may soon be his grave,

The green sparkles bright with a Tear;

The Soldier braves death

For a fanciful wreath

In Glory's romantic career;

But he raises the foe

When in battle laid low,

And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If, with high-bounding pride,

He return to his bride!

Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear;

All his toils are repaid

When, embracing the maid,

From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Sweet scene of my youth!

Seat of Friendship and Truth,

Where Love chas'd each fast-fleeting year

Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd,

For a last look I turn'd,

But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear.

Though my vows I can pour,

To my Mary no more,

My Mary, to Love once so dear,

In the shade of her bow'r,

I remember the hour,

She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

By another possest,

May she live ever blest!

Her name still my heart must revere:

With a sigh I resign,

What I once thought was mine,

And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart,

Ere from you I depart,

This hope to my breast is most near:

If again we shall meet,

In this rural retreat,

May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight

To the regions of night,

And my corse shall recline on its bier;

As ye pass by the tomb,

Where my ashes consume,

Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

~ George Gordon, Lord Byron~

Evening Solace

The human heart has hidden treasures,

In secret kept, in silence sealed;

The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,

Whose charms were broken if revealed.

And days may pass in gay confusion,

And nights in rosy riot fly,

While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,

The memory of the past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,

Such as in evening silence come,

When, soft as birds their pinions closing,

The heart's best feelings gather home.

Then in our hearts there seems to languish

A tender grief that is not woe;

And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,

Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,

Float softly back, a faded dream;

Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,

The tale of others' sufferings seem.

Oh! whent he heart is freshly bleeding,

How longs it for that time to be,

When, through the mist of years receding,

Its woes but live in reverie!

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,

On evening shade and loneliness;

And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,

Feel no untold and strange distress

Only a deeper impulse given

By lonely hour and darkened room,

To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,

Seeking a life and world to come.

~Charlotte Bronte~

Some of the images used on this page came from:

The midi " Katie's Tears" is used with permission by the composer.