Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration.
Death
Dear Boss,
O youth whose heart is right,
Whose loins are girt to gain
The hell-defended height
Where Virtue beckons plain;
Who seest the stark array
And hast not stayed to count
But singly wilt assay
The many-cannoned mount:
Well is thy war begun;
Endure, be strong and strive;
But think not, O my son,
To save thy soul alive.
I DREAMED my Lady and I were dead
And dust was either heart;
Our bodies in one grave were laid,
Our souls went far apart,
Hers with the saints for aye to dwell
And mine to lie and pine in Hell.
But when my Lady looked for me
And found her quest in vain,
For all that blesséd company
She nothing knew but pain.
She cried: "How feigned your praising is!
Your God is love, and love I miss."
The hills whereon her tear-drops fell
Were white with lily-flowers,
I.
BEHIND the Rector's lily-bed
I saw an Angel pass,
A halo shone behind her head
Behind the Rector's lily-bed,
It was the sun blushed fiery red.
So very fair she was !
Behind the Rector's lily-bed
I saw an Angel pass.
II.
Fiametta is her name
And she's the Rector's cousin,
But she shall be my flame !
(Fiametta is her name).
The Rector's old and lame,
Has daughters by the dozen,
Fiametta is her name
HOW like her ! But 'tis she herself,
Comes up the crowded street,
How little did I think, the morn,
My only love to meet !
Whose else that motion and that mien?
Whose else that airy tread ?
For one strange moment I forgot
My only love was dead.