Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/231

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was a noble form, which oft I marked As the full blossom of bright boyhood's charms Ripened to manly beauty. Nature bade His eloquent lip and fervid eye to win Fair woman's trusting heart. Yet not content, Because ambition's fever wrought within, He went to battle, and the crimson sod Told where his life-blood gushed. The maid who kept In her young heart the secret of his love, With all its hoarded store of sympathies And images of hope, think ye she gave, When a few years their fleeting course had run, Her heart again to man? No! No! She twined Its riven tendrils round a surer prop, And reared its blighted blossoms toward that sky Which hath no cloud. She sought devotion's balm, And with a gentle sadness turned her soul From gaiety and song. Pleasure, for her, Had lost its essence, and the viol's voice Gave but a sorrowing sound. Even her loved plants Breathed too distinctly of the form that bent With her's to watch their budding. 'Mid their flowers, And through the twining of their pensile stems, The semblance of a cold, dead hand would rise,