And that which wakes this gentler charm Coos at this moment on your arm.
Your voice was always soft in youth, And had the very sound of truth,
But never were its tones so mild Until you blessed your earliest child;
And when to soothe some little wrong It melts into a mother's song,
The same strange sweetness which in years Long vanished filled the eyes with tears,
And (even when mirthful) gave always A pathos to your girlish lays,
Falls, with perchance a deeper thrill, Upon the breathless listener still.
I cannot guess in what fair spot The chance of Time hath fixed your lot,
Nor can I name what manly breast Gives to that head a welcome rest;
I cannot tell if partial Fate Hath made you poor, or rich, or great;
But oh! whatever be your place, I never saw a form or face
To which more plainly hath been lent The blessing of a full content!
La Belle Juive
Is it because your sable hair Is folded over brows that wear At times a too imperial air;
Or is it that the thoughts which rise In those dark orbs do seek disguise Beneath the lids of Eastern eyes;
That choose whatever pose or place May chance to please, in you I trace The noblest woman of your race?
The crowd is sauntering at its ease, And humming like a hive of bees-- You take your seat and touch the keys:
I do not hear the giddy throng; The sea avenges Israel's wrong, And on the wind floats Miriam's song!
You join me with a stately grace; Music to Poesy gives place; Some grand emotion lights your face:
At once I stand by Mizpeh's walls: With smiles the martyred daughter falls, And desolate are Mizpeh's halls!
Intrusive babblers come between; With calm, pale brow and lofty mien, You thread the circle like a queen!
Then sweeps the royal Esther by; The deep devotion in her eye Is looking "If I die, I die!"
You stroll the garden's flowery walks; The plants to me are grainless stalks, And Ruth to old Naomi talks.
Adopted child of Judah's creed, Like Judah's daughters, true at need, I see you mid the alien seed.
I watch afar the gleaner sweet; I wake like Boaz in the wheat, And find you lying at my feet!
My feet! Oh! if the spell that lures My heart through all these dreams endures, How soon shall I be stretched at yours!
An Exotic
Not in a climate near the sun Did the cloud with its trailing fringes float, Whence, white as the down of an angel's plume, Fell the snow of her brow and throat.
And the ground had been rich for a thousand years With the blood of heroes, and sages, and kings, Where the rose that blooms in her exquisite cheek Unfolded the flush of its wings.
On a land where the faces are fair, though pale As a moonlit mist when the winds are still, She breaks like a morning in Paradise Through the palms of an orient hill.
Her beauty, perhaps, were all too bright, But about her there broods some delicate spell, Whence the wondrous charm of the girl grows soft As the light in an English dell.
There is not a story of faith and truth On the starry scroll of her country's fame, But has helped to shape her stately mien, And to touch her soul with flame.
I sometimes forget, as she sweeps me a bow, That I gaze on a simple English maid, And I bend my head, as if to a queen Who is courting my lance and blade.
Once, as we read, in a curtained niche, A poet who sang of her sea-throned isle, There was something of Albion's mighty Bess In the flash of her haughty smile.
She seemed to gather from every age All the greatness of England about her there, And my fancy wove a royal crown Of the dusky gold of her hair.
But it was no queen to whom that day, In the dim green shade of a trellised vine, I whispered a hope that had somewhat to do With a small white hand in mine.
The Tudor had vanished, and, as I spoke, 'T was herself looked out of her frank brown eye, And an answer was burning upon her face, Ere I caught the low reply.
What was it! Nothing the world need know-- The stars saw our parting! Enough, that then I walked from the porch with the tread of a king, And she was a queen again!
The Rosebuds
Yes, in that dainty ivory shrine, With those three pallid buds, I twine And fold away a dream divine!
One night they lay upon a breast Where Love hath made his fragrant nest, And throned me as a life-long guest.
Near that chaste heart they seemed to me Types of far fairer flowers to be-- The rosebuds of a human tree!
Buds that shall bloom beside my hearth, And there be held of richer worth Than all the kingliest gems of earth.