The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore Collected by Himself. In Ten Volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore |  |
260
WHO IS THE MAID?
ST. JEROME'S LOVE.
Who is the Maid my spirit seeks,
Through cold reproof and slander's blight?
Has she Love's roses on her cheeks?
Is hers an eye of this world's light?
No—wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if, at times, a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.
Through cold reproof and slander's blight?
Has she Love's roses on her cheeks?
Is hers an eye of this world's light?
No—wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if, at times, a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.
261
I chose not her, my heart's elect,
From those who seek their Maker's shrine
In gems and garlands proudly deck'd,
As if themselves were things divine.
No—Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broider'd veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty, still is frail.
From those who seek their Maker's shrine
In gems and garlands proudly deck'd,
As if themselves were things divine.
No—Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broider'd veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty, still is frail.
Not so the faded form I prize
And love, because its bloom is gone;
The glory in those sainted eyes
Is all the grace her brow puts on.
And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
So touching as that form's decay,
Which, like the altar's trembling light,
In holy lustre wastes away.
And love, because its bloom is gone;
The glory in those sainted eyes
Is all the grace her brow puts on.
And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
So touching as that form's decay,
Which, like the altar's trembling light,
In holy lustre wastes away.
These lines were suggested by a passage in one of St. Jerome's Letters, replying to some calumnious remarks that had been circulated respecting his intimacy with the matron Paula:—“Numquid me vestes sericæ, nitentes gemmæ, picta facies, aut auri rapuit ambitio? Nulla fuit alia Romæ matronarum, quæ meam possit edomare mentem, nisi lugens atque jejunans, fletu pene cæcata.” —Epist. “Si tibi putem.”
| The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore | |