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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477706" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ione</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>AH, yes, 't is sweet still to remember,<br>Though 't were less painful to forget;<br>For while my heart glows like an ember,<br>Mine eyes with sorrow's drops are wet,<br>And, oh, my heart is aching yet.<br>It is a law of mortal pain<br>That old wounds, long accounted well,<br>Beneath the memory's potent spell,<br>Will wake to life and bleed again.<br>So 't is with me; it might be better<br>If I should turn no look behind, —<br>If I could curb my heart, and fetter<br>From reminiscent gaze my mind,<br>Or let my soul go blind — go blind!<br>But would I do it if I could?<br>Nay! ease at such a price were spurned;<br>For, since my love was once returned,<br>All that I suffer seemeth good.<br>I know, I know it is the fashion,<br>When love has left some heart distressed,<br>To weight the air with wordful passion;<br>But I am glad that in my breast<br>I ever held so dear a guest.<br>Love does not come at every nod,<br>Or every voice that calleth 'hasten;'<br>He seeketh out some heart to chasten,<br>And whips it, wailing, up to God!<br>Love is no random road wayfarer<br>Who Where he may must sip his glass.<br>Love is the King, the Purple-Wearer,<br>Whose guard recks not of tree or grass<br>To blaze the way that he may pass.<br>What if my heart be in the blast<br>That heralds his triumphant way;<br>Shall I repine, shall I not say:<br>'Rejoice, my heart, the King has passed!'<br>In life, each heart holds some sad story —<br>The saddest ones are never told.<br>I, too, have dreamed of fame and glory,<br>And viewed the future bright with gold; <br>But that is as a tale long told.<br>Mine eyes have lost their youthful flash,<br>My cunning hand has lost its art;<br>I am not old, but in my heart<br>The ember lies beneath the ash.<br>I loved! Why not? My heart was youthful,<br>My mind was filled with healthy thought.<br>He doubts not whose own self is truthful,<br>Doubt by dishonesty is taught;<br>So loved! boldly, fearing naught.<br>I did not walk this lowly earth;<br>Mine was a newer, higher sphere,<br>Where youth was long and life was dear,<br>And all save love was little worth.<br>Her likeness! Would that I might limn it,<br>As Love did, with enduring art;<br>Nor dust of days nor death may dim it,<br>Where it lies graven on my heart,<br>Of this sad fabric of my life a part.<br>I would that I might paint her now<br>As I beheld her in that day, <br>Ere her first bloom had passed away,<br>And left the lines upon her brow.<br>A face serene that, beaming brightly,<br>Disarmed the hot sun's glances bold.<br>A foot that kissed the ground so lightly,<br>He frowned in wrath and deemed her cold,<br>But loved her still though he was old.<br>A form where every maiden grace<br>Bloomed to perfection's richest flower, —<br>The statued pose of conscious power,<br>Like lithe-limbed Dian's of the chase.<br>Beneath a brow too fair for frowning,<br>Like moon-lit deeps that glass the skies<br>Till all the hosts above seem drowning,<br>Looked forth her steadfast hazel eyes,<br>With gaze serene and purely wise.<br>And over all, her tresses rare,<br>Which, when, with his desire grown weak,<br>The Night bent down to kiss her cheek,<br>Entrapped and held him captive there.<br>This was Ione; a spirit finer<br>Ne'er burned to ash its house of clay;<br>A soul instinct with fire diviner<br>Ne'er fled athwart the face of day,<br>And tempted Time with earthly stay.<br>Her loveliness was not alone<br>Of face and form and tresses' hue;<br>For aye a pure, high soul shone through<br>Her every act: this was Ione.<br>II.<br>'TWAS in the radiant summer weather,<br>When God looked, smiling, from the sky;<br>And we went wand'ring much together<br>By wood and lane, Ione and I,<br>Attracted by the subtle tie<br>Of common thoughts and common tastes,<br>Of eyes whose vision saw the same,<br>And freely granted beauty's claim<br>Where others found but worthless wastes.<br>We paused to hear the far bells ringing<br>Across the distance, sweet and clear. <br>We listened to the wild bird's singing<br>The song he meant for his mate's ear,<br>And deemed our chance to do so dear.<br>We loved to watch the warrior Sun,<br>With flaming shield and flaunting crest,<br>Go striding down the gory West,<br>When Day's long fight was fought and won.<br>And life became a different story;<br>Where'er I looked, I saw new light.<br>Earth's self assumed a greater glory,<br>Mine eyes were cleared to fuller sight.<br>Then first I saw the need and might<br>Of that fair band, the singing throng,<br>Who, gifted with the skill divine,<br>Take up the threads of life, spun fine,<br>And weave them into soulful song.<br>They sung for me, whose passion pressing<br>My soul, found vent in song nor line.<br>They bore the burden of expressing<br>All that I felt, with art's design,<br>And every word of theirs was mine. <br>I read them to Ione, ofttimes,<br>By hill and shore, beneath fair skies,<br>And she looked deeply in mine eyes,<br>And knew my love spoke through their rhymes.<br>Her life was like the stream that floweth,<br>And mine was like the waiting sea;<br>Her love was like the flower that bloweth,<br>And mine was like the searching bee —<br>I found her sweetness all for me.<br>God plied him in the mint of time,<br>And coined for us a golden day,<br>And rolled it ringing down life's way<br>With love's sweet music in its chime.<br>And God unclasped the Book of Ages,<br>And laid it open to our sight;<br>Upon the dimness of its pages,<br>So long consigned to rayless night,<br>He shed the glory of his light.<br>We read them well, we read them long,<br>And ever thrilling did we see<br>That love ruled all humanity, —<br>The master passion, pure and strong.<br>III.<br>TO-DAY my skies are bare and ashen,<br>And bend on me without a beam.<br>Since love is held the master-passion,<br>Its loss must be the pain supreme —<br>And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream.<br>But pardon, dear departed Guest,<br>I will not rant, I will not rail;<br>For good the grain must feel the flail;<br>There are whom love has never blessed.<br>I had and have a younger brother,<br>One whom I loved and love to-day<br>As never fond and doting mother<br>Adored the babe who found its way<br>From heavenly scenes into her day.<br>Oh, he was full of youth's new wine, —<br>A man on life's ascending slope,<br>Flushed with ambition, full of hope;<br>And every wish of his was mine.<br>A kingly youth; the way before him<br>Was thronged with victories to be won; <br>so joyous, too, the heavens o'er him<br>Were bright with an unchanging sun, —<br>His days with rhyme were overrun.<br>Toil had not taught him Nature's prose,<br>Tears had not dimmed his brilliant eyes,<br>And sorrow had not made him wise;<br>His life was in the budding rose.<br>I know not how I came to waken,<br>Some instinct pricked my soul to sight;<br>My heart by some vague thrill was shaken, —<br>A thrill so true and yet so slight,<br>I hardly deemed I read aright.<br>As when a sleeper, ign'rant why,<br>Not knowing what mysterious hand<br>Has called him out of slumberland,<br>Starts up to find some danger nigh.<br>Love is a guest that comes, unbidden,<br>But, having come, asserts his right;<br>He will not be repressed nor hidden.<br>And so my brother's dawning plight<br>Became uncovered to my sight. <br>Some sound-mote in his passing tone<br>Caught in the meshes of my ear;<br>Some little glance, a shade too dear,<br>Betrayed the love he bore Ione.<br>What could I do? He was my brother,<br>And young, and full of hope and trust;<br>I could not, dared not try to smother<br>His flame, and turn his heart to dust.<br>I knew how oft life gives a crust<br>To starving men who cry for bread;<br>But he was young, so few his days,<br>He had not learned the great world's ways,<br>Nor Disappointment's volumes read.<br>However fair and rich the booty,<br>I could not make his loss my gain.<br>For love is dear, but dearer, duty,<br>And here my way was clear and plain.<br>I saw how I could save him pain.<br>And so, with all my day grown dim,<br>That this loved brother's sun might shine,<br>I joined his suit, gave over mine,<br>And sought Ione, to plead for him.<br>I found her in an eastern bower,<br>Where all day long the am'rous sun<br>Lay by to woo a timid flower.<br>This day his course was well-nigh run,<br>But still with lingering art he spun<br>Gold fancies on the shadowed wall.<br>The vines waved soft and green above,<br>And there where one might tell his love,<br>I told my griefs — I told her all!<br>I told her all, and as she hearkened,<br>A tear-drop fell upon her dress.<br>With grief her flushing brow was darkened;<br>One sob that she could not repress<br>Betrayed the depths of her distress.<br>Upon her grief my sorrow fed,<br>And I was bowed with unlived years,<br>My heart swelled with a sea of tears,<br>The tears my manhood could not shed.<br>The world is Rome, and Fate is Nero,<br>Disporting in the hour of doom.<br>God made us men; times make the hero —<br>But in that awful space of gloom <br>I gave no thought but sorrow's room.<br>All — all was dim within that bower,<br>What time the sun divorced the day;<br>And all the shadows, glooming gray,<br>Proclaimed the sadness of the hour.<br>She could not speak — no word was needed;<br>Her look, half strength and half despair,<br>Told me I had not vainly pleaded,<br>That she would not ignore my prayer.<br>And so she turned and left me there,<br>And as she went, so passed my bliss;<br>She loved me, I could not mistake —<br>But for her own and my love's sake,<br>Her womanhood could rise to this!<br>My wounded heart fled swift to cover,<br>And life at times seemed very drear.<br>My brother proved an ardent lover —<br>What had so young a man to fear?<br>He wed Ione within the year. <br>No shadow clouds her tranquil brow,<br>Men speak her husband's name with pride,<br>While she sits honored at his side —<br>She is — she must be happy now!<br>I doubt the course I took no longer,<br>Since those I love seem satisfied.<br>The bond between them will grow stronger<br>As they go forward side by side;<br>Then will my pains be justified.<br>Their joy is mine, and that is best —<br>I am not totally bereft,<br>For I have still the mem'ry left —<br>Love stopped with me — a Royal Guest!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Paul+Laurence+Dunbar">Paul Laurence Dunbar</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=477706" data-title="Ione de Paul Laurence Dunbar" data-description="I.
AH, yes, 't is sweet still to remember,
Though 't were less painful to forget;
For while my heart glows like an ember,
Mine eyes with sorrow's drops are wet,
And, oh, my heart is aching yet.
It is a law of mortal pain
That old wounds, long acco..."></div>
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