Tender and true as the starlight of heaven,
Sweet as the heart of a bud when it opes,
Swift as the flash of the cloud-leaping levin,
Rich as the springtime in promise and hopes,
Pure as the gleam of the dew on the flowers
Is love’s first awakening in youth’s dreamy hours.
It sings in the heart like a forest-hid rill—
Runs over its rim like a rock-basined spring;
Strong, it o’erpowers cold reason with will,
Impulsively binding two lives with a ring.
It goes where it listeth, unreined as the wind,
So reckless, ’tis said, that the love god is blind.
Joyful, yet trembling like a zephyr-kissed rose,
Flushing and paling like skies of the dawn,
Silent, lest speech shall the secret disclose,
Wayward and shy as a mountain-bred fawn,
Flying the bosom where yearning to rest,
Hushing the tenderness, thrilling the heart,
Palpitant tempests disturbing the breast;
Enjoying—enduring the sweet and the smart
That comes of the wounding with Cupid’s first dart.