Ballads for the Times (Now first collected,) Geraldine, A Modern Pyramid, Bartenus, A Thousand Lines, and other poems. By Martin F. Tupper. A new Edition, enlarged and revised |
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 | Ballads for the Times |  |
Her mouth grows wide, and her face falls in,
And her beautiful brow becomes flat and thin,
And sulphurous flashes blear and singe
That sweetest of eyes with its delicate fringe,
Till, all its loveliness blasted and dead,
The eye of a snake blinks deep in her head;
For raven locks flowing loose and long
Bristles a red mane, stiff and strong,
And sea-green scales are beginning to speck
Her shrunken breasts, and lengthening neck;
The white round arms are sunk in her sides,—
As when in chrysalis canoe
A may-fly down the river glides,
Struggling for life and liberty too,—
Her body convulsively twists and twirls,
This way and that it bows and curls,
And now her soft limbs melt into one
Strangely and horribly tapering down,
Till on the burnt grass dimly is seen
A serpent-monster, scaly and green,
Horror!—can this be Geraldine?
And her beautiful brow becomes flat and thin,
And sulphurous flashes blear and singe
That sweetest of eyes with its delicate fringe,
Till, all its loveliness blasted and dead,
The eye of a snake blinks deep in her head;
For raven locks flowing loose and long
Bristles a red mane, stiff and strong,
And sea-green scales are beginning to speck
Her shrunken breasts, and lengthening neck;
314
As when in chrysalis canoe
A may-fly down the river glides,
Struggling for life and liberty too,—
Her body convulsively twists and twirls,
This way and that it bows and curls,
And now her soft limbs melt into one
Strangely and horribly tapering down,
Till on the burnt grass dimly is seen
A serpent-monster, scaly and green,
Horror!—can this be Geraldine?
| Ballads for the Times | |