Ballads of Beauty. Various

      Into my heart a silent look

      Flashed from thy careless eyes;

      And what before was shadow, took

      The light of summer skies.

      The first-born Love was in that look;

      The Venus rose from out the deep

      Of those inspiring eyes.

      My life, like some lone, solemn spot

      A spirit passes o'er,

      Grew instinct with a glory not

      In earth or heaven before.

      Sweet trouble stirred the haunted spot,

      And shook the leaves of every thought

      Thy presence wandered o'er!

      My being yearned, and crept to thine,

      As if in times of yore

      Thy soul had been a part of mine,

      Which claimed it back once more —

      Thy very self no longer thine,

      But merged in that delicious life

      Which made us ONE of yore!

      There bloomed beside thee forms as fair,

      There murmured tones as sweet;

      But round thee breathed the enchanted air

      'Twas life and death to meet.

      And henceforth thou alone wert fair,

      And though the stars had sung for joy,

      Thy whisper only sweet!

      O fairest of the rural maids!

      Thy birth was in the forest shades;

      Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,

      Were all that met thine infant eye.

      Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,

      Were ever in the sylvan wild;

      And all the beauty of the place

      Is in thy heart and on thy face.

      The twilight of the trees and rocks

      Is in the light shade of thy locks;

      Thy step is as the wind, that weaves

      Its playful way among the leaves.

      Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene

      And silent waters heaven is seen;

      Their lashes are the herbs that look

      On their young figures in the brook.

      The forest depths, by foot unpressed,

      Are not more sinless than thy breast;

      The holy peace that fills the air

      Of those calm solitudes, is there.

      Half-past three in the morning!

      And no one in the street

      But me, on the sheltering doorstep

      Resting my weary feet,

      Watching the rain-drops patter

      And dance where the puddles run,

      As bright in the flaring gas-light

      As dew-drops in the sun.

      There's a light upon the pavement,

      It shines like a magic glass,

      And there are faces in it

      That look at me and pass.

      Faces – ah! well remembered

      In the happy Long Ago,

      When my garb was white as lilies,

      And my thoughts as pure as snow.

      Faces! ah, yes! I see them —

      One, two, and three – and four —

      That come in the gust of tempests,

      And go on the winds that bore.

      Changeful and evanescent,

      They shine mid storm and rain,

      Till the terror of their beauty

      Lies deep upon my brain.

      One of them frowns; I know him,

      With his thin, long, snow-white hair, —

      Cursing his wretched daughter

      That drove him to despair.

      And the other, with wakening pity

      In her large, tear-streaming eyes,

      Seems as she yearned towards me,

      And whispered "Paradise."

      They pass, – they melt in the ripples,

      And I shut mine eyes, that burn,

      To escape another vision

      That follows where'er I turn —

      The face of a false deceiver

      That lives and lies; ah, me!

      Though I see it in the pavement,

      Mocking my misery!

      They are gone, all three! – quite vanished!

      Let nothing call them back!

      For I've had enough of phantoms,

      And my heart is on the rack.

      God help me in my sorrow!

      But there, – in the wet, cold stone,

      Smiling in heavenly beauty,

      I see my lost, mine own!

      There, on the glimmering pavement,

      With eyes as blue as morn,

      Floats by the fair-haired darling

      Too soon from my bosom torn.

      She clasps her tiny fingers,

      She calls me sweet and mild,

      And says that my God forgives me

      For the sake of my little child.

      I will go to her grave to-morrow,

      And pray that I may die;

      And I hope that my God will take me

      Ere the days of my youth go by.

      For I am old in anguish,

      And long to be at rest,

      With my little babe beside me,

      And the daisies on my breast.

      Along the frozen lake she comes

      In linking crescents, light and fleet;

      The ice-imprisoned Undine hums

      A welcome to her little feet.

      I see the jaunty hat, the plume

      Swerve bird-like in the joyous gale, —

      The cheeks lit up to burning bloom,

      The young eyes sparkling through the veil.

      The quick breath parts her laughing lips,

      The white neck shines