Page:Florence Earle Coates Poems 1898 102.jpg

 A DÉBUTANTE

last, for weariness,

She slept, yet breathed in dreams a fragrance of success

Sweeter to her desires than cooling showers,

Than honey hived in flowers,

Or than those notes which ere the night is done,

Are shyly fluted forth in worship of the sun.

The longed-for prize

Her own, again she heard delighted plaudits rise,

Again her conquest read in beaming eyes,

And scanned each upturned face, and missed but one!

"O love," she, dreaming, sighed,—

In joy grown sudden sad, and lonely in her pride,—

"O love, dost thou, of all the world, not care

These triumphs dear to share?

Dost thou, who sued in griefs to bear a part,

Who lightened discontent, and soothed with heavenly art,

Forbearing blame— 102