 | The Creed of My Heart and Other Poems |  |
55
TO A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN
I
Some day the frosts of autumn will mar thine outward grace;Some day what men call beauty will vanish from thy face:
But I, to whom thy spirit lies bare in all its light,
Shall see thee still, Belovèd, with love's unchanging sight.
II
Think not that aught will perish. Think not that Time will harm,Though wasting form and feature, the magic of thy charm.
His breath may blanch thy tresses or make thy cheeks grow pale;
But love's the soul of beauty, and love will never fail.
III
See where yon stately river, brimmed by the rising tide,Winds, with empurpled mountains and woods on either side,
Winds, with the sky above it glassed in its ample breast,
Fair as a lake enchanted, when winds are lulled to rest.
56
IV
But lo! the borrowed waters fall slowly back to sea:The charm, the spell is broken: the lake has ceased to be:
And ere the tide, far-summoned, has reached another land,
Forlorn the river wanders through trackless wastes of sand.
V
Yet not a drop has vanished. The sea, whose flowing waveHad filled the vale with gladness, drew back the gift she gave,
Back to her own abysses, whence, when the ebb is o'er,
She'll weave anew the picture that she unwrought before.
VI
So, Love! when life is waning and when thy mortal frameNo more can guard the treasures that from thy spirit came,
Back to its mystic fountain the silent tide will creep,
And find a safe asylum in love's unfathomed deep;—
57
VII
Safe till, when Death has mastered the pulses of life's storm,Thy soul will fill with radiance another fairer form,
Will flood an ampler channel with waves of purer light,
And charm with deeper beauty my soul's enraptured sight.
| The Creed of My Heart and Other Poems | |