 | Poems Lyrical and Dramatic |  |
169
THE VENTURESOME.
AN ALLEGORY.
'Twas one of the blossoms of Paradise
That smiled on a mountain's brink,
And lit with the lure of an angel's eyes
The quaking path in the empty skies,
Where the wild goats pause and shrink.
That smiled on a mountain's brink,
And lit with the lure of an angel's eyes
The quaking path in the empty skies,
Where the wild goats pause and shrink.
There came a maiden out of her bower:
Oh but her eyes were bright!
She hath fixed their gaze on the innocent flower,
And her peace is fled in a single hour
For the wish of a new delight.
Oh but her eyes were bright!
She hath fixed their gaze on the innocent flower,
And her peace is fled in a single hour
For the wish of a new delight.
“'Tis the fairest flower I have seen,” she cried,
“Though many a flower be fair:
What matter though mother and father would chide?
The old are dull, and the path is wide:
How sweet it would show in my hair!”
“Though many a flower be fair:
What matter though mother and father would chide?
The old are dull, and the path is wide:
How sweet it would show in my hair!”
170
It beckons her on with a strange delight,
For its petals are white as snow:
She reaches to it with a blinded sight:—
It smiles, as of old, on the perilous height,
She lies in the vale below.
For its petals are white as snow:
She reaches to it with a blinded sight:—
It smiles, as of old, on the perilous height,
She lies in the vale below.
| Poems Lyrical and Dramatic | |