My beauty! sing to me and make me glad!
Thy sweet words drop upon the ear as soft
As rose-leaves on a well.—Festus.
The deepest wrong that thou couldst do,
Is thus to doubt my love for thee,
For questioning that thou question’st too
My truth, my pride, my purity.
’Twere worse than falsehood thus to meet
Thy least caress, thy lightest smile,
Nor feel my heart exulting beat
With sweet, impassioned joy the while.
The deepest wrong that thou couldst do,
Is thus to doubt my faith professed;
How should I, love, be less than true,
When thou art noblest, bravest, best?
For thee I braid and bind my hair
With fragrant flowers, for only thee;
Thy sweet approval, all my care,
Thy love—the world to me!
For thee I fold my fairest gown,
With simple grace, for thee, for thee!
No other eyes in all the town
Shall look with love on me.
For thee my lightsome lute I tune,
For thee—it else were mute—for thee!
The blossom to the bee in June
Is less than thou to me.
“Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
Or the death they bear,
The heart, which tender thought clothes, like a dove,
With the wings of care!”
The Almas tripped, with tinkling feet,
Unmarked their motions light and fleet!
Shall I tell what the violet said to the star,
While she gazed through her tears on his beauty, afar?
She sang, but her singing was only a sigh,
And nobody heard it, but Heaven, Love, and I,
A sigh, full of fragrance and beauty, it stole
Through the stillness up, up, to the star’s beaming soul.
She sang—“Thou art glowing with glory and might,
And I’m but a flower, frail, lowly, and light.
I ask not thy pity, I seek not thy smile;
I ask but to worship thy beauty awhile;
To sigh to thee, sing to thee, bloom for thine eye,
And when thou art weary, to bless thee and die!”
Shall I tell what the star to the violet said,
While ashamed, ’neath his love-look, she hung her young head?
He sang—but his singing was only a ray,
And none but the flower and I heard the dear lay.
How it thrilled, as it fell, in its melody clear,
Through the little heart, heaving with rapture and fear!
Ah no! love! I dare not! too tender, too pure,
For me to betray, were the words he said to her;
But as she lay listening that low lullaby,
A smile lit the tear in the timid flower’s eye;
And when death had stolen her beauty and bloom,
The ray came again to play over her tomb.
Oh! know ye the knight of the red waving plume?
Lo! his lightning smile gleams through the battle’s wild gloom,
Like a flash through the tempest; oh! fly from that smile!
’Tis the wild-fire of fury—it glows to beguile!
And his sword-wave is death, and his war-cry is doom!
Oh! brave not the knight of the dark crimson plume!
His armour is black, as the blackest midnight;
His steed like the ocean-foam, spotlessly white;
His crest a crouched tiger, who dreams of fierce joy—
Its motto “Beware! for I wake to destroy!”
And his sword-wave is death, and his war-cry is doom!
Oh! brave not the knight of the dark crimson plume!
Give me back my childhood’s truth!
Give me back my guileless youth!
Pleasure, Glory, Fortune, Fame,
These I will not stoop to claim!
Take them! All of Beauty’s power,
All the triumph of this hour
Is not worth one blush you stole—
Give me back my bloom of soul!
Take the cup and take the gem!
What have I to do with them?
Loose the garland from my hair!
Thou shouldst wind the night-shade there;
Thou who wreath’st, with flattering art,
Poison-flowers to bind my heart!
Give me back the rose you stole!
Give me back my bloom of soul?
“Pure as Aurora when she leaves her couch,
Her cool, soft couch in Heaven, and, blushing, shakes
The balmy dew-drops from her locks of light.”