Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/46



For siren Paris with her tenderest smile

Had failed to blot the old songs from the score.

The every glamor and the every wile

Of this most sovereign sorceress of guile

But left the tempted truer than before!

Loving I lost, regaining, loved the more:—

What ne’er I learned from sweet propinquity,

My exile taught. Blindness I begged her for:—

She touched my eyes, and showed them how to see,

And how that they had been but blind erewhile.

Upon that day hope turned one golden grain

Of purest promise from the loam of toil,

Significant of some yet hidden vein

Beneath, and by the signal bade me gain

What lay unmined below the stubborn soil.

As if by magic, cleared of ruck and roil,

The spring of Life grew undefiled and pure,

And, limpid lying, freed of all turmoil,

Mirrored your face, immutable and sure,

And then I knew that we should meet again.