And ever as the sad lament Would thus her lips divide, Her lips, like sister roses bent By passing gales, elastic sent Their blushes from the tide. While mournful o'er her pictured face She seemed, she thought, a marble Grace, "Ah, what avail those eyes replete "O, 't is the worst of cruel things, Yon bird that trims his purple wings, "The little glowworm sheds her light, — Nor sheds her light in vain, That still her tiny lover's sight May trace her o'er the plain. - "All living nature seems to move By sympathy divine, The sea, the earth, the air above; Did all their hearts entwine! My heart alone of all my kind "A blank, embodied space, that knows Save when the fierce tornado throws Thus plained the maid; and now her eyes A youth beheld in ecstasies, Mute standing by her side. "Forbear, O lovely maid, forbear!" "Or, if Arabia, — rather say, Where some delicious spring Remurmurs to the leaves that play "And now, methinks, I cannot deem Thus spake the youth; and then his tongue He told her of his cruel fate, Condemned alone to rove From infancy to man's estate, And then from many a poet's page The blest reverse he proved, How sweet to pass life's pilgrimage, From purple youth to sere old age, Aye loving and beloved! Here ceased the youth; but still his words Did o'er her fancy play; They seemed the matin-song of birds, Or like the distant low of herds The sympathetic chord she feels Her altered heart, of late so drear, But who shall paint her crimson blush, As now the secret with a flush The happy Lindor, with a look Her glowing hand exulting took, Myrtilla felt the spreading flame, So sweet it mantled o'er her frame, No longer, then, ye fair, complain, The high, the low, the meek, the vain, Another self, shall find. |