Abide awhile yet

by practicalspactical

SAYETH JOSHUA: 

The Long Night and the Relativity of Time & the Sickening Insomniac of Proust and the Nightingale and the Morninggale and the Lark – it is not the Lark, it is the Nightingale — parting is such sweet sorrow – IF WE COULD SPIN OUR ROOM BUT FASTER THIS NIGHT WOULD SLOW AND ALLOW US TO ABIDE AWHILE LONGER AND DELAY THE BREAKING OF THE DAWN 

ABIDE AWHILE YET
ABIDE WHILE YET
whence that construction? Unknown. One finds it almost in Shelley, but not
THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT.

[Published by Medwin, "The Athenaeum", August 11, 1832.
There is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]

1.
'Sleep, sleep on! forget thy pain;
My hand is on thy brow,
My spirit on thy brain;
My pity on thy heart, poor friend;
And from my fingers flow                                             _5
The powers of life, and like a sign,
Seal thee from thine hour of woe;
And brood on thee, but may not blend
With thine.

2.
'Sleep, sleep on! I love thee not;                                   _10
But when I think that he
Who made and makes my lot
As full of flowers as thine of weeds,
Might have been lost like thee;
And that a hand which was not mine                                   _15
Might then have charmed his agony
As I another's--my heart bleeds
For thine.

3.
'Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of
The dead and the unborn                                              _20
Forget thy life and love;
Forget that thou must wake forever;
Forget the world's dull scorn;
Forget lost health, and the divine
Feelings which died in youth's brief morn;                           _25
And forget me, for I can never
Be thine.

4.
'Like a cloud big with a May shower,
My soul weeps healing rain
On thee, thou withered flower!                                       _30
It breathes mute music on thy sleep
Its odour calms thy brain!
Its light within thy gloomy breast
Spreads like a second youth again.
By mine thy being is to its deep                                     _35
Possessed.

5.
'The spell is done. How feel you now?'
'Better--Quite well,' replied
The sleeper.--'What would do                                         _39
You good when suffering and awake?
What cure your head and side?--'
'What would cure, that would kill me, Jane:
And as I must on earth abide
Awhile, yet tempt me not to break
My chain.'