 | The improvisatrice; and other poems |  |
She touched her lute—never again
Her ear will listen to its strain!
She took her cage, first kissed the breast—
Then freed the white dove prisoned there:
It paused one moment on her hand,
Then spread its glad wings to the air.
She drank the breath, as it were health,
That sighed from every scented blossom;
And taking from each one a leaf,
Hid them, like spells, upon her bosom.
Then sought the sacred path again
She once before had traced, when lay
A Christian in her father's chain;
And gave him gold, and taught the way
To fly. She thought upon the night,
When, like an angel of the light,
She stood before the prisoner's sight,
And led him to the cypress grove,
And showed the bark and hidden cove;
And bade the wandering captive flee,
In words he knew from infancy!
And then she thought how for her love
He had braved slavery and death,
That he might only breathe the air
Made sweet and sacred by her breath.
She reached the grove of cypresses—
Another step is by her side:
Another moment, and the bark
Bears the fair Moor across the tide!
Her ear will listen to its strain!
She took her cage, first kissed the breast—
Then freed the white dove prisoned there:
22
Then spread its glad wings to the air.
She drank the breath, as it were health,
That sighed from every scented blossom;
And taking from each one a leaf,
Hid them, like spells, upon her bosom.
Then sought the sacred path again
She once before had traced, when lay
A Christian in her father's chain;
And gave him gold, and taught the way
To fly. She thought upon the night,
When, like an angel of the light,
She stood before the prisoner's sight,
And led him to the cypress grove,
And showed the bark and hidden cove;
23
In words he knew from infancy!
And then she thought how for her love
He had braved slavery and death,
That he might only breathe the air
Made sweet and sacred by her breath.
She reached the grove of cypresses—
Another step is by her side:
Another moment, and the bark
Bears the fair Moor across the tide!
| The improvisatrice; and other poems | |