SHE has left the lighted hall, | |
| She has flung down cap and plume, | |
| Her eye wears softer light, | |
| And her cheek a tenderer bloom: | |
| |
| And her hair in sunny showers | 5 |
| Falls o’er her marble brow, | |
| From its midnight bonds of pearl, | |
| Free as her thoughts are now.— | |
| |
| She has left the yet glad dance, | |
| O’er those gentle thoughts to brood, | 10 |
| That haunt a girl’s first hour | |
| Of love-touched solitude. | |
| |
| Music’s sweet and distant sound | |
| Comes floating on the air, | |
| From the banquet-room it tells | 15 |
| The dancers still are there: | |
| |
| But she, their loveliest one, | |
| Has left the festal scene, | |
| To dream on what may be, | |
| To muse o’er what has been, | 20 |
| |
| To think on low, soft words, | |
| Her ear had drunk that night, | |
| While her heart beat echo-like, | |
| And her cheek burnt ruby bright. | |
| |
| How beautiful she looks | 25 |
| Beneath that moonlit sky, | |
| With her lip of living rose, | |
| Her blue and drooping eye! | |
| |
| Spell-like, the festal scene | |
| Rises on heart and brain; | 30 |
| Not a word, and not a look, | |
| But she lives them o’er again. | |
| |
| Well, dream thy dream, fair girl! | |
| Tho’ ne’er did morning close, | |
| With its cold and waking light, | 35 |
| Dreams fair and false as those: | |
| |
| They are like the mists that rise | |
| At day-break to the sky, | |
| There, touched by all bright hues, | |
| On its breast awhile they lie; | 40 |
| |
| But the darker hour draws on, | |
| The rose-tint disappears, | |
| And the falling cloud returns | |
| To its native earth in tears.— | |
| |
| Yet dream thy dream, fair girl! | 45 |
| Tho’ away it will be driven, | |
| ’Tis something to have past | |
| A single hour in heaven. | |
| |
| Tho’ thine eye has April light, | |
| Tho’ thy cheek has April bloom | 50 |
| There is that upon them both | |
| Which marks an early tomb. | |
| |
| So young, so fair, to die— | |
| And can those words be true? | |
| Ah! better far ‘to die,’ | 55 |
| Than live as some must do; | |
| |
| With a heart that will not break, | |
| Though every nerve be strained, | |
| Whether won to be betrayed, | |
| Or discovered and disdained:— | 60 |
| |
| For Love to watch Hope’s grave, | |
| And yet itself breathe on, | |
| Like the blighted flower which lives, | |
| Tho’ scent and bloom be gone. | |
| |
| But this watching each last leaf, | 65 |
| Green on the fading tree, | |
| The while we see it wither, | |
| Is maiden not for thee. | |
| |
| One hour of passionate joy, | |
| And one of passionate grief— | 70 |
| A morning and a midnight— | |
| Fill up thy life’s short leaf! | |
| |
| Short, sad, but still how much | |
| Of death’s bitterness is past, | |
| Thy last sigh breathed upon the heart, | 75 |
| Beating thine unto the last! | |
| |
