Page:Maryland, my Maryland, and other poems - Randall - 1908.pdf/97

 I sprang from the couch, till I stood by the side
 * Of my friend, as he gazed at the bodice and dress;

“This way,” whispered he, “and I’ll show you a bride
 * Not to wed but to worship—to sing not to bless.”

Dear God! as the picture the painter unsealed,
 * The curtain was shrivelled away to a scroll—

I felt that an Isis of Eld was revealed,
 * That Isis I veiled in the crypt of my soul!

Those pure melting eyes float that mystical gauze,
 * Which prophecy weaves on the sight and the hair

Of those that peer down the death-vistas and pause
 * O’er the slab and the violets waiting them there.

There’s a fountain of tears by the fountain of mirth,
 * As twilights are thin ’twixt an old and new leaven;

And if not a paladin hero of earth
 * She could make me a passionate pilgrim of heaven.

Ah, the glove’s on the mantel, the rose in the glass,
 * The name in the Bible upon the blank page,

And the very same rosary fingered at mass
 * Coiled by the canary bird—dead in its cage.