Page:The Vow of the Peacock.pdf/127

118

But other times and other feelings came: Hope is love's element, and love with her Sickened of its own vanity. . . . She lived Mid bright realities and brighter dreams, Those strange but exquisite imaginings That tinge with such sweet colours minstrel thoughts; And fame, like sunlight, was upon her path; And strangers heard her name, and eyes that never Had looked on Sappho, yet had wept with her. Her first love never wholly lost its power, But, like rich incense shed, although no trace Was of its visible presence, yet its sweetness Mingled with every feeling, and it gave That soft and melancholy tenderness Which was the magic of her song. . . . That Youth Who knelt before her was so like the shape That haunted her spring dreams—the same dark eyes,