She stood in all that bashful tenderness
Which marks a maiden’s entrance to the world—
O’er her fair forehead wav’d each raven tress,
And down her neck in soft luxuriance curl’d,
Shading its whiteness—while her full dark eye
(Half hidden by its silken lash from sight)
Beam’d with expression—yet one might descry
A pensive feeling mix’d with her young heart’s delight!
Soft was her cheek, and beautiful—the hue
Of the young rose-bud lightly rested there;
While many a wandering vein of deepest blue
Stray’d o’er her brow of purest marble—where
No trace of stormy passions yet was seen—
No with’ring marks, stamp’d by the hand of care;
Nought that the loveliest form might ill beseem
Of blight or blemish dwelt upon a shrine so fair!
Such was the form that, vision-like, came o’er
The desert pathway of the scenes I trod;
And many a ling’ring year must pass, before
(If e’er again) we trace life’s thorny road
An hour together—time will then have chang’d.
The bloom and freshness of that fair young brow;
And, more than all, that guileless mind estrang’d
From the pure saint-like thoughts that make it lovely now!
How many a form, that meets us in the gloom
Of this dark world, and cheers the passing hour,
Must fade away, and lose its sunny bloom
Ere we again behold it!—like the flower
Whose buds at morning woo the pilgrim’s eyes,
And fill the air with sweetness—till the shower
Or midday sun hath touched it—then it lies,
A drooping, fading thing, beneath the twilight skies!
And such a fate is Woman’s. What so fair,
So pure and lovely, as her morning prime—
Ere the heart’s blight, or cankering touch of care,
Hath done the work of the destroyer, Time,
And stoln away her freshness—ere the hour
Has come, that comes to all things—when Decay
(The universal foe) asserts his power,
And sweeps with ruthless stroke youth, beauty—all away!