A MORTAL.

Do the goddesses, I wonder,

Ever come to mortal earth,

Ever throw a wild enchantment

Round the heart of mortal birth?

Does the goddess Venus wander

Ever from her realms above,

Liveried in the rarest raiment

Stolen from the courts of Love?

Are her eyes of witching azure,

Curtained o’er with rosy light;

And a golden sunset halo

Round a smiling brow of white?

Oh I wonder if the roses

Ever blush upon her cheeks

When the scented kiss of morning

For the rarest flower seeks.

Ah, ye purest gems of ocean,

Set in ruby rays serene,

Does your light fall down in worship

When those pearl-dight lips are seen?

Aye, I wonder if the heavens

And the flowers of the earth,

As they smile upon each other,

Have the hundredth of her worth?

Do the ripples of the zephyr,

Or the waves to music wed

Have the poetry of motion

That attends her airy tread?

Do the Orphic orbs of æther,

With a lyric hand divine,

Draw the wandering planets round them

As her words this heart of mine?

Surely, surely not a goddess,

’Tis a mortal I have seen;

Never goddess wore such features,

Never goddess such of mien.

She’s the rarest of the fairest,

She’s the light of every eye;

She’s the smile of earth and ocean

And the glory of the sky.

Hers the lid with golden lashes

Raised above the Morning’s eye;

Hers the smile of wave and flower

Caught from out the blushing sky.

Oh her cheeks are rose of sunset,

And her eyes the stars of night;

Opening dawn, her lips half parted,

Laced with gleams of iv’ry light.

Lydian music in her being

An enchanted spirit dwells,

Caught from out the hands of angels,

Hands that swing the hallowed bells.

Love—the purest love of heaven—

Had its birth upon her lips;—

E’en the flowers toss her kisses

From their tiny finger-tips.

Oh the winds enfold the mountains

And the seas draw down the stars;

Still they sigh and murmur ever,

“Never love so pure as hers.”

And the notes forever rising

To the planetary seas

Echo back in spheric music,

“Never mortals loved as these.”

Heart to heart I clasped my Darling,

Drew her down from angel hands,

With my head in God’s own presence,

And my feet upon the sands.—

Drew her to me from the angels,

As the silent summer night

Sweetest scent of all the roses

To its loving bosom might.

Day by day her sister angels

Sing to me her rarest worth;

For she’s drawing me toward heaven

As I drew her down to earth.