Page:The Improvisatrice.pdf/289

Rh

There is more in the spell of the one slight gaze, Than the loudest plaudits the crowd can raise. Take the gems in glory's coronal, And one smile of beauty is worth them all.

He was not lonely quite,—a shade, A dream, a fancy, round him played; Sometimes low, at the twilight hour, He heard a voice like that, whose power Was on his heart: it sang a strain Of those whose love was fond, yet vain: Sweet like a dream,—yet none might say Whose was the voice, or whose the lay. And once, when worn with toil and care, All that the soldier has to bear,