TO ⸺.
Her heart is a flower that long hath slept
Where clammy night-dews o’er it wept,
But now to love and rapture wakes
As the flushing glory of morning breaks,
And the heavy tears that chilled it so
Pure diamonds all in the sunshine glow.
Her hair is a sea of golden waves
Love’s beauteous temple wall that laves,
Rippling o’er two rosy shells
Wherein the soul of music dwells,
To break in hyacinthine curl
Caressing the base of purest pearl.
Her eyes, twin mountain pools that lie
Reflecting back the summer sky,
A fringe of graceful poplars there
Sway softly in the amorous air.
Oh! he who fathoms those wondrous eyes
Will see the joys of Paradise.
A crimson little rose her mouth
Exhales the memories of the South;
And when its petals gently move,
Breathing some tender word of love,
No angel’s voice at gates of bliss
Hath promise to compare with this.
Her brow a page of vellum fair,
’Twere vain to seek for tracery there;
Pure as Mount Athos, yet I know
Beneath that alabaster brow
One tender secret, guarded well,
Stirs sweetly in its guarded cell.
* * * * *
How many hundred hearts have beat
To the faint music of her feet;
What yearning eyes devour the grass
That ripples where her footsteps pass,
Beneath her kirtle’s airy sweep,
Like moonbeams glancing o’er the deep.
A snowy miracle of grace
Her circling arms, for whose embrace
Hyperion’s self might vainly sigh.
Oh! if within those arms to lie
To happy mortal e’er were given,
How tame were all the joys of heaven.
Sheltered by those endearing charms
From my own spirit’s dark alarms,
Endymion were not half so blest
Fainting upon his Phœbe’s breast.