| |
| SWEET MARY, the first time she ever was there, | |
| Came into the ball-room among the fair; | |
| The young men and maidens around her throng, | |
| And these are the words upon every tongue: | |
| |
| ‘An Angel is here from the heavenly climes, | 5 |
| Or again does return the golden times; | |
| Her eyes outshine every brilliant ray, | |
| She opens her lips—’tis the Month of May.’ | |
| |
| Mary moves in soft beauty and conscious delight, | |
| To augment with sweet smiles all the joys of the night, | 10 |
| Nor once blushes to own to the rest of the fair | |
| That sweet Love and Beauty are worthy our care. | |
| |
| In the morning the villagers rose with delight, | |
| And repeated with pleasure the joys of the night, | |
| And Mary arose among friends to be free, | 15 |
| But no friend from henceforward thou, Mary, shalt see. | |
| |
| Some said she was proud, some call’d her a whore, | |
| And some, when she passèd by, shut to the door; | |
| A damp cold came o’er her, her blushes all fled; | |
| Her lilies and roses are blighted and shed. | 20 |
| |
| ‘O, why 1 was I born with a different face? | |
| Why was I not born like this envious race? | |
| Why did Heaven adorn me with bountiful hand, | |
| And then set me down in an envious land? | |
| |
| ‘To be weak as a lamb and smooth as a dove, | 25 |
| And not to raise envy, is call’d Christian love; | |
| But if you raise envy your merit’s to blame | |
| For planting such spite in the weak and the tame. | |
| |
| ‘I will humble my beauty, I will not dress fine, | |
| I will keep from the ball, and my eyes shall not shine; | 30 |
| And if any girl’s lover forsakes her for me | |
| I’ll refuse him my hand, and from envy be free.’ | |
| |
| She went out in morning attir’d plain and neat; | |
| ‘Proud Mary’s gone mad,’ said the child in the street; | |
| She went out in morning in plain neat attire, | 35 |
| And came home in evening bespatter’d with mire. | |
| |
| She trembled and wept, sitting on the bedside, | |
| She forgot it was night, and she trembled and cried; | |
| She forgot it was night, she forgot it was morn, | |
| Her soft memory imprinted with faces of scorn; | 40 |
| |
| With faces of scorn and with eyes of disdain, | |
| Like foul fiends inhabiting Mary’s mild brain; | |
| She remembers no face like the Human Divine; | |
| All faces have envy, sweet Mary, but thine; | |
| |
| And thine is a face of sweet love in despair, | 45 |
| And thine is a face of mild sorrow and care, | |
| And thine is a face of wild terror and fear | |
| That shall never be quiet till laid on its bier. | |
