Patrick Regan has kindly shared the material from his George Heath site with readers of the Victorian Web, who may wish to consult the original.
Where is the beautiful face
Flushed with the wide, dark eyes?
Where is the yearning face?
Only the gloom-wind sighs;
And out of the door in the yard
The sycamores moan and stir,
And the clouds mope onward, but none regard
The wail in my heart for her.
Oh! where is the beautiful face
Framed in its mass of hair?
Where is the haunting face?
Hark! on the tremulous air
Comes the boom of a funeral bell
Heavy as my despair —
'Tis well, I am answered, well, right well!
Would I were sleeping there!
Where art thou, mine elect?
Oh! but to hear thy voice,
To see thee once more, mine elect!
Afar in thy paradise,
In the peace of the realms of calm,
Dost dream of our troubled shore?
Oh, love! my spirit hath lack of balm
In thy absence, evermore.
I follow the shafts from the crest
Of the hill, when the east grows warm;
And now I am turned to the west,
Where the day sinketh down into storm;
And alike when the night is pearled
I pour my complaint, oh, love!
My heart goeth out over all the world,
To return like the weary dove.
Oh! when will it all be done?
And when will the mourning cease?
Slow are thy wheels, O Sun!
Fickle thy wing, O Peace!
Ah, woe! that our dreams will fly
Like feathers, when winds are rude,
That we shroud up our dead from the world's cold eye,
And rot in our solitude!
Last modified 3 September 2002