Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808 – 1877)
Famous British society beauty and author of the early and mid nineteenth century.
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Love not! love not! ye hopeless sons of clay;
Hope’s gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers—
Things that are made to fade and fall away,
Ere they have blossomed for a few short hours.
A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers;
There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears.
I am listening for the voices
Which I heard in days of old.
Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning—
Oh friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning.
We have been friends together
In sunshine and in shade.
Since first beneath the chestnut-tree
In fancy we played
But coldness dwells within thine heart
A cloud is on thy brow.
We have been friends together,—
Shall a light word part us now?
For death and life, in ceaseless strife,
Beat wild on this world’s shore,
And all our calm is in that balm—
Not lost but gone before.
Every poet hopes that after-times
Shall set some value on his votive lay.
O Twilight! Spirit that dost render birth
To dim enchantments; melting heaven with earth,
Leaving on craggy hills and running streams
A softness like the atmosphere of dreams.
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