 | Studies of Sensation and Event |  |
153
THE FACE.
These dreary hours of hopeless gloom,
Are all of life I fain would know;
I would but feel my life consume,
While bring they back mine ancient woe;
For midst the clouds of grief and shame
They crowd around, one face I see;
It is the face I dare not name;
The face none ever name to me.
Are all of life I fain would know;
I would but feel my life consume,
While bring they back mine ancient woe;
For midst the clouds of grief and shame
They crowd around, one face I see;
It is the face I dare not name;
The face none ever name to me.
I saw it first, when in the dance
Borne, like a falcon, down the hall,
He stayed to cure some rude mischance
My girlish deeds had caused to fall;
He smiled, he danced with me, he made
A thousand ways to soothe my pain;
And sleeplessly all night I prayed
That I might see that smile again.
Borne, like a falcon, down the hall,
He stayed to cure some rude mischance
My girlish deeds had caused to fall;
He smiled, he danced with me, he made
A thousand ways to soothe my pain;
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That I might see that smile again.
I saw it next, a thousand times;
And every time its kind smile neared;
Oh! twice ten thousand glorious chimes
My heart rang out, when he appeared;
What was I then, that others' thought
Could alter so my thought of him!
That I could be by others taught
His image from my heart to dim!
And every time its kind smile neared;
Oh! twice ten thousand glorious chimes
My heart rang out, when he appeared;
What was I then, that others' thought
Could alter so my thought of him!
That I could be by others taught
His image from my heart to dim!
I saw it last, when black, and white,
Shadows went struggling o'er it wild;
When he regained my long lost sight,
And I with cold obeisance smiled;—
I did not see it fade from life;
My letters o'er his heart they found;
They told me in death's last hard strife,
His dying hands around them wound.
Shadows went struggling o'er it wild;
When he regained my long lost sight,
And I with cold obeisance smiled;—
I did not see it fade from life;
My letters o'er his heart they found;
They told me in death's last hard strife,
His dying hands around them wound.
Although my scorn that face did maim,
Even when its love would not depart;
Although my laughter smote its shame,
And drave it swording through his heart;
Although its death-gloom grasps my brain
With crushing unrefused despair;—
That I may dream that face again,
God still must find alone my prayer.
Even when its love would not depart;
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And drave it swording through his heart;
Although its death-gloom grasps my brain
With crushing unrefused despair;—
That I may dream that face again,
God still must find alone my prayer.
| Studies of Sensation and Event | |