Poem by Maria Jane Jewsbury

Age in Youth

What deaths we suffer ere we die!
Logan.

'TIS not that I was happy as the bird upon the bough,
'Tis not that I was healthy as the peasant at his plough,
And that neither one nor other for a moment am I now,
Not for this, not for this, the sadness on my brow.
There is medicine for the body, and if grief the mind assail,
The peace of God, the joy of Heaven, can over all prevail;
But there are deeper, darker things, and many a sadder tale,
To mock the leech's remedy, make pious counsel fail.
If memory be sleeping, if feeling's power be fled,
And heart and fancy once so warm, and ever busy head,
Be cold, and dark, and quiet, a city of the dead,
Can aught rebuild the ruins? recall the spirit sped?
Ye may string again the lute, if it only be unstrung;
And learn forgotten melodies, if thine a minstrels' tongue;
And rear the fallen flower, if the stem remains unwrung;
But never feeling's power revive in hearts no longer young.

1. The Oceanides. No. 7. The Spirit of the Cape
2. Address to Sleep
3. Lines Written after Reading Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative
4. The Oceanides. No. 3. The Burden of the Sea
5. The Oceanides. No. 4. The Sunken Rock

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