She ’s loveliest of the festal throng In delicate form and Grecian face,— A beautiful, incarnate song, A marvel of harmonious grace, And yet I know the truth I speak: From those gay groups she stands apart, A rose upon her tender cheek, A thorn within her heart. Though bright her eyes’ bewildering gleams, Fair tremulous lips and shining hair, A something born of mournful dreams Breathes round her sad enchanted air; No blithesome thoughts at hide and seek From out her dimples smiling start; If still the rose be on her cheek, A thorn is in her heart. Young lover, tossed ’twixt hope and fear, Your whispered vow and yearning eyes Yon marble Clytie pillared near Could move as soon to soft replies; Or, if she thrill at words you speak, Love’s memory prompts the sudden start; The rose has paled upon her cheek, The thorn has pierced her heart.
The Rose and Thorn
More from Poet
-
Beyond the sunset and the amber sea To the lone depths of ether, cold and bare, Thy influence, soul of all tranquillity, Hallows the earth and awes the reverent air; Yon laughing rivulet quells its silvery tune; The pines, like priestly watchers tall and grim, Stand mute against the...
-
While sauntering through the crowded street, Some half-remembered face I meet, Albeit upon no mortal shore That face, methinks, has smiled before. Lost in a gay and festal throng, I tremble at some tender song,— Set to an air whose golden bars I must have heard in other stars. In sacred aisles I...
-
I See the cloud-born squadrons of the gale, Their lines of rain like glittering spears deprest, While all the affrighted land grows darkly pale In flashing charge on earth’s half-shielded breast. Sounds like the rush of trampling columns float From that fierce conflict; volleyed thunders...
-
She hath no beauty in her face Unless the chastened sweetness there, And meek long-suffering, yield a grace To make her mournful features fair:— Shunned by the gay, the proud, the young, She roams through dim, unsheltered ways; Nor lover’s vow, nor flatterer’s tongue Brings music to her...
-
I Think it is over, over, I think it is over at last: Voices of foemen and lover, The sweet and the bitter, have passed: Life, like a tempest of ocean Hath outblown its ultimate blast: There ’s but a faint sobbing seaward While the calm of the tide deepens leeward, And behold! like the...