Smiling, but suffering, I feel,
Beneath that face, so sweet and sad,
In those pale temples, thoughts like steel
Pierce burningly.—I had gone mad
Had I once deemed her glad.—
Unconsciously, with eyes that yearn
To look beyond the present far
For some faint future hope, I turn—
Above her garden, day's fierce star,
Vermilion at the window bar,
Sank sullenly—like love's own sun—
An omen of our future life.—
And then the memory of one
Rich day she'd said she'd be my wife
Set heart and brain at strife.
Again amid the heavy hues,
Soft crimson, seal, and satiny gold
Of flowers there, I stood 'mid dews
With her; deep in her garden old,
While sunset fires uprolled.
And now.... It can not be! and yet
To feel 'tis so!—In heart and brain
To know 'tis so!—while warm and wet
I seem to smell those scents again,
Verbena-scents and rain.
I turn, in hope she'll bid me stay.
Again her cameo beauty mark
Set in that smile.—She turns away.
No word of love! not even a spark
Of hope to cheer the dark!
That sepia sketch—conceive it so—
A jaunty head with mouth and eyes
Tragic beneath a rose-chapeau,
Silk-masked, unmasking—it denies
The look we half surmise,
We know is there. 'Tis thus we read
The true beneath the false; perceive
The smile that hides the ache.—Indeed!
Whose soul unmasks?... Not mine!—I grieve,—
Oh God!—but laugh and leave....