 | The improvisatrice; and other poems |  |
5
Like morning light, half dew, half fire,
To Laura and to love was vowed—
He looked on one, who with the crowd
Mingled, but mixed not; on whose cheek
There was a blush, as if she knew
Whose look was fixed on her's. Her eye,
Of a spring-sky's delicious blue,
Had not the language of that bloom,
But mingling tears, and light, and gloom,
Was raised abstractedly to Heaven:—
No sign was to her lover given.
I painted her with golden tresses,
Such as float on the wind's caresses
When the laburnums wildly fling
Their sunny blossoms to the spring,
6
Upon the sun touched nectarine;
A lip of perfume and of dew;
A brow like twilight's darkened line.
I strove to catch each charm that long
Has lived,—thanks to her lover's song!
Each grace he numbered one by one,
That shone in her of Avignon.
| The improvisatrice; and other poems | |