Poem by Caroline Clive

Bessey (I)

AGAIN, again that thrilling strain!
Voice of the Past, thine accents chain
Time's alter'd, onward track;
Lost hours are swelling round my heart,
And bid it feel in every part
The tide of days roll'd back.

It is thy song, thy very note,
Familiar as thine own dear face;
Around me now those accents float
As by our own hearth's resting-place.

It cannot be that years have gone,
Since tones so fresh to thought were given;
A day is all,--a single one,--
Oh! 'tis the song of yester-even.

And there comes in thy voice of glee,
Sweet Bessey, joined in harmony,
My Nella's strain to fill;
Oh! how familiar is that tone,
Clear, gay, untired, 'tis all thine own,
Thine, laughing Bessey, still.

Oh! stop not; thou dost break a dream,
That once was Truth, and still can bring
Such lively thoughts, as well may seem
More true than any living thing.

But 'tis a dream--between us stand
Absence and death, and grief and time;
I see again the spectral band,
As sinks away that magic chime.

Ah! well, sweet Bessey, thou didst sleep,
While bright with Life's first rays thine eye;
Ere weariness its light could steep,
It clos'd, with all its brilliancy.

I saw thee, and thy face, though wan,
Still smil'd that plaited coif beneath;
As though Life's stream had sparkled on,
E'en till the very touch of Death.

I gazed until I dream'd there came
Again Life's quick delicious flame
Through all thy pulses led;
And though too soon the fancy wan'd,
I did not touch thy frozen hand,
I would not feel thee dead.

But years have taught, all silent grown,
No more to listen for thy tone,
Or turn thy form to see;
I do not, save when that old strain
Comes back and brings thy voice again,
Thy very voice to me.

1. Former Home
2. The Crab Tree
3. A Rainy Day
4. Written in Health
5. I Watch’d the Heavens

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