Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/37

Rh And I dreamed it would be bliss to live

Forever at his feet,

At the feet of him whose eloquence

Was so strangely grand and sweet!

But a sudden thought dashed on my brain,

The thought of that night in June,

When a boy stood on the river bank,

Beneath the midnight moon;

And I knew the son of fame was he

I had known in years agone!

Then I thought of the girl with the dreamy eyes,

But ere my thoughts were shaped,

I seemed to stand beside a bier

With sable velvet draped;

And a man knelt there in agony,

Of which no sound escaped.

And I seemed to read the hidden past

As it were from out a book;

I knew full well why that strong man

In such mute anguish shook;

And I shrunk away from him, nor dared

Upon his grief to look.

He was the boasted idol-shrine

Round which a nation bowed;

And the wild acclaim of worshipers—

The blinding incense-cloud—

Had hidden too long the idolater

Now folded in her shroud.

Another change—and a noble man,

With brow of kingly pride,

Trod proudly through a glittering throng

With a fair girl by his side;

And I knew by her snowy vail and wreath

She was a youthful bride.