University of Virginia Library

A NONDESCRIPT.

There lives amid the varied scenes of life
A vixen, masqued in starless mystery.
Her tresses seem, in distant view, to wave
In auburn full profusion o'er a neck
Of ivory; her bright mien lit with smiles,
That glow in loveliness, and homage win
From devotees, who kneel afar, and strew
Her path with odoriferous incense;
Her eye, in diamond flashes, fills the soul
With rapture voiceless, and to mortal ken
A blissful angel loves to linger there,
And the Pierian habitants are gemmed
With the bright crowns the Paphian goddess wore;
And there they dance in mazy pride, and fling
Sweet perfume at each wanton wheel of love;
Not soft Idallia's form, 'mid groves of palm,
Seemed wrought in mould so smooth, and pencilled o'er
With teints so delicate, as her's; she moved
In dignity and gracefulness—her voice
Breathed forth celestial aspirations, fraught
With holy love, in vocal symphony.
I saw a form, on glossy pinions, move
In fearless majesty, yet calm and sweet,
And soar above the dazzled herd around,
And break the spell the Pythoness had hung,
In sybil wiles, around her horrid mien.
Oh! then, recoiling, faith was lost in dread,
And false, illusive seemed my startled view
Of hissing serpents, wreathed around her brow,
Who coiled, in massive folds, and fiercely flung,
From venomed tongues, their fatal poison o'er
The haunted scene; her wrinkled lineaments,
Distorted all, assumed a demon glare
Of vengful fierceness; and the yellow blood
Diffused a sallow flush o'er features,
Wrought into heavenly form by the art
Of magic falsehood; her celestial frame
Before the seraph eye, that gazed upon
Its dread deformity, became a mass
Of formless, graceless, and ignoble shame;
Her eye flashed with the fires, that glow around
The sad victim of undying torture.
She shrunk away in terror wild before
The rays, that disenthralled the votary
Of charms, that glittered in the distant eye,
But withered in possession, and assumed
A Stygian horror, and in holy wrath
A sheeny sabre was brandished on high,
And pierced the heart's deep core; the flood
Of life reeked from the deadly wound, and flowed,
In tainting streams, around the syren's dome.
Graved on her robe were flaring figures, wrought
In fascinating forms, but on her brow,
Devoid of hieroglyphic mystery,
Appeared “hypocrisy;” and upon the crown
Of the winged being, who unveiled her wiles,
And broke her fancied spell, in jewels set,
Shone the fair name of bright and stainless Truth.