 | Maiden Ecstasy |  |
105
THE LOST ANGEL.
I
An angel child had slidInto the world, strange and alone:
Yet did all love, at its first fountain hid,
Spring up in her unsown.
This child, by many reared, became
A watcher of their flocks; they took her in
But taught her not to breathe a mother's name,
Or feel her orphan soul to theirs akin.
II
Her love grew up to fillScenes where the stumbling torrents leap,
O'er which, self-galaxied and free of will,
The golden eagles sweep.
106
Than with the chamois on whose track she hung,
The vaulted avalanche that roofed the rocks
The dearest home of all she served among.
III
It is her universeAnd with a ksis she greets the sun,
Or listens as the laughter-floods rehearse
The thoughts that through her run.
But when a stranger passes by,
Like the wild creatures that refuse to stay
At her fond call, must she his presence fly,
Alarmed not, only timorous till away.
IV
She springs to maidenhoodAs a bright arrow skyward darts,
And, while she learns o'er earnest thoughts to brood,
Her early dream departs.
Things that have life without its cares,
The enticing flower, the waters' coaxing speech,
Give back for sighs the smiles of all her years,
And, not yet sad, a serious morrow teach.
107
V
Her home is with the poor,But why hath she that angel's face
Which seems a stranger at the cottage door?
Is there no better place
For this stray maid who knoweth not
Of that true paradise more beauteous still
Than had descended to her childish lot,
Slow with such souls as hers its seats to fill?
VI
Those eyes more richly shoneThan heaven, more open in their love;
All lovely things rushed into them as one
Did she even speak or move.
Who gazed could never turn away,
For there was maiden beauty, as at first,
In its pure pomp and innocent display,
Despite a world at man's own choice accursed.
VII
Those charms were scarce for one:A face in all that wealth attired,
Unguarded, as a far-off desert lone,
As paradise desired!
108
Rich in the graces which the unwary win:
The fiends who crave to be avenged on good
Through love, the only love that loves to sin.
VIII
One comes whose lordly mienGives all around a rustic air;
So changed are all things in his presence seen
That only he seems there.
His voice, but trembling, shakes her will;
And who look on are rapturous at his power
Which can controul a heart that budding still
Yet droops as 'twere a heavy-laden flower.
IX
Can love for love atoneWith all the hidden woe it sends,
Can it to-day forecast the morrow's moan
In which its passion ends?
But nature's priest has set his key
Within her heart, unlocked the golden door,
And heaven spreads out; her soul in bliss is free;
She looks not back, it is the earth no more.
109
X
The key stays in her heartAnd he who turns it finds consent:
He can those thrilling lips in love dispart
And close them in content.
Her gaze is drawn into his gaze;
She sees the light of heaven but through his eyes;
She smiles his smile as on his lip it plays;
When he is sad she sighs again his sighs.
XI
Where did those vallies lieThat hid awhile her childhood's dream
And left a night-cloud on the noon-day sky,
A shadow on the stream?
All changes; soul in soul they track
The scenes that tell her of those infant years:
The wondrous dream o'er the lost path comes back;
The world she loved once more on earth appears.
XII
Lost in his arms she feelsA happier childhood has begun,
Until another change to her reveals
The work of death is done.
110
Born low, what here availed an angel's charms
But by a lordly fiend to be devoured
And the sweet refuse cast out of his arms?
XIII
Her innocence remains,The poison dreg subsides and leaves
A soul for ever pure, that nothing stains;
It is an orphan grieves.
She tries her memory to repage,
To mark out there what thoughts to heaven she takes,
What leaves behind her in her orphanage;
Then, at one burst, her pent-up heart she breaks.
| Maiden Ecstasy | |