Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/143

 FAIR GLANCES. 137

When at the marriage-altar stands

Her daughter robed in white. Scarce trusts she one long look of love,

Conscious the veil and ring Have curtained off from her a shrine

Around a crowned king.

Fair is the feathered shaft of fire

Shot from the lover s eye, When, dainty, fair, and trippingly,

The girl he loves goes by When brow unbends, and stern lips smile

Beneath the beard s disguise, For lips the tender secret keep,

To lose it in the eyes.

But fairer far than all to see

Is one glance God has given One which our Saviour sanctified

Ere He went up to heaven When through His hour of agony

He cared for Mary s woe, And bade the tender friend He left

A son s remembrance show.

��It is the look a son bestows

Upon a whitened head, When, drawing near the wicket-gate

With faint and falt ring tread,

12*

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