University of Virginia Library

A BRACE OF SONNETS.

[I. I've noted oft, and not without surprise]

I 've noted oft, and not without surprise
How true it is of each and every one,
That beauty dwelleth in the gazer's eyes
Rather than in the features gazed upon.
Now there's an impassioned swain across the street
Who sees such beauty in his Susan Jane,—
A dumpy damsel whom I often meet,
With freckled face, red curls, and speech ungain,
As charmed the painters of the olden time,
The grand old masters of a former age,
Inspiring their rare pencillings sublime
Till the mute canvas spoke;—and I'll engage
He dreams of angels harping heavenly strains,
And every angel's face and voice is Susan Jane's!

[II. Music is in the ear of him who hears]

Music is in the ear of him who hears,
As beauty in the eyes of him who sees;
I'll wager now, no “music of the spheres,”
No concert grand of nature's harmonies,
No sound of distant harp-notes on the wind,
No organ's loud reverberating swell,
No orchestra, nor voice of Jenny Lind,
Soundeth to Susan Jane one half so well
As that consumptive fiddle, which he keeps
In yonder attic, and sometimes o'nights
Thrums to her window-blind, and sings—“She sleeps,”
With an ear-torturing chorus, that affrights
All within hearing. Falsehood joined to crime!
He knows she's wide awake, and listening all the time!