Friendship's offering - 1826 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PARTING. BY T. K. HERVEY. The night is lowering, dull and dark, He holds her to his heavy heart; Her eye is on the fatal bark,— And must they—must they... more » part! Oh ! that a wish could chain the gales, How long that dreary calm should last, Or ere a breath should swell the sails, That flap around the mast! Oh! that no ray might ever rise, To light her latest sacrifice! There are they met—the young and fond— That such should ever meet to part! One hour is theirs, and all beyond A chaos of the heart:— She hears him yet—his softest sigh— The breathing of his lowest word— Sounds that, by her, beneath the sky, Shall never more be heard ; Form, voice, that hour—all, save its sorrow— Shall be but memories on the morrow! He is her all who bends above, Her hope—the brightest, and the last;— Oh! that the days life gives to love Should ever be the past! What gleam upon their startled eyes Breaks, like the flash from angry heaven ? Lo, where the clouds, in yonder skies, Before the gale are driven! And, o'er their spirits, all grows night, Beneath that burst of life and light. The moon is forth,—but sad and pale, As though she wept, and waited, still, For him she never more shall hail, Upon the Latmos hill: The breeze is up,—the sail unfurled ;— Oh ! for one hour of respite, yet! In vain !—'Tis moonlight in the world, But Ellen's light is set; The bark is tossing in the bay,— The streamers point away—away ! One kiss—of lips as wan and cold As life to them shall, henceforth, be ; One glance—the glance that makes us old, Of utter agony; One throb—the bitterest and the last, Awaking, but to deaden, pain, In hearts that, when that pang is past, Shall never ache again ;— And t...« less