Barbara, Alexander Smith was one of a group of Scottish poets who wrote during the mid-1850s under the name the “Spasmodics”. This was a school of poetry that was very popular for around two decades but then suddenly fell out of fashion even though it included the odd poem from such luminaries as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Barbara by Alexander Smith
Barbara
ht air;
I could not drive away the thought that you were lingering there.
O many and many a winter night I sat when you were gone,
My worn face buried in my hands, beside the fire alone–
Within the dripping churchyard, the rain plashing on your stone,
You were sleeping, Barbara.’Mong angels, do you thinkOf the precious golden link
I clasp’d around your happy arm while sitting by yon brink?
Or when that night of gliding dance, of laughter and guitars,
Was emptied of its music, and we watch’d, through lattice-bars,
The silent midnight heaven creeping o’er us with its stars,
Till the day broke, Barbara?In the years I’ve changed;
Wild and far my heart has ranged,
And many sins and errors now have been on me avenged;
But to you I have been faithful whatsoever good I lack’d:
I loved you, and above my life still hangs that love intact–
Your love the trembling rainbow, I the reckless cataract.
Still I love you. Barbara.Yet, Love, I am unblest;
With many doubts opprest,
I wander like the desert wind without a place of rest.
Could I but win you for an hour from off that starry shore,
The hunger of my soul were still’d; for Death hath told you more
Than the melancholy world doth know–things deeper than all lore
You could teach me, Barbara.In vain, in vain, in vain!
You will never come again.
There droops upon the dreary hills a mournful fringe of rain;
The gloaming closes slowly round, loud winds are in the tree,
Round selfish shores for ever moans the hurt and wounded sea;
There is no rest upon the earth, peace is with Death and thee–
Barbara!
