Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/134

 128 HIDDEN GLORY.

Better slay pretty myths on the stairs, And bury them there under roses,

Lest, embodied, they shame later choice, When love s later blossom uncloses.

��HIDDEN GLORY.

FROM Virginia s mountain-shadow Comes a tale of fairy-land Caverns hung with stony samite ; Curtains looped with silver band ;

Strange stalactites, rosy-tinted ;

Mighty chambers, deep and wide ; Fair, translucent, crystals draping

Like the garments of a bride ;

Chandelier and fretted cornice ;

Arch and groin and pillared door; Sculptured bust and marble lily

Downward growth from roof to floor ;

Organ-pipe, deep echoes sounding ;

Chaplets, worthy of a fay, These have lain unknown, unlighted,

Neath the hillside of Loray

Through the years, unguessed, untroubled,

Sealed secret in its tomb ; Leaving time for centuries

Above the ground to bud and bloom ;

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