Page:Myrtle and Myrrh.djvu/30

 Yet how I wish, yet how I shrink, when I

Behold thee—ah, she's ever in mine eye!

If thy pink, blue and golden hues disclose

The secret, might not that undo the rose?

Thou sister to the dumb hydrangea, when

Will all thy sombre musings rise again?

O, how the light drifts from the hemlock grove,

How in the night disarmed Desires do rove!

Of all my desert days

Thou art the only one

Upon whose sandy face

A strip of pleasure's foliage trembling grows;

Of all the winding ways.

Which with my rapture shone

But one can I retrace,

And there the barren breast of beauty glows.

Of all the dread desires,

That beat within me still,

One shakes the sacred fear

And hurls me into the arms of her below;

But oh, how life suspires—

How soon after the thrill

Of joy I shudder, I hear

My murmuring soul pine for a better woe.