Page:The story of Saville - told in numbers.djvu/66

 Over a face that is girlish fair, candid and noble-browed, Yet ’ware of its own perfections high, and some thing haughty and proud, Scarce warmer in tint than the cornel’s leaf or a runlet’s eddying foam ’Till your voice or touch calls the straying blood back to its natural home, And then,—not the heart of a half-blown rose holds ever a hue so sweet As the pink in the cheek of a woman where youth and happiness meet!” “I am as a wanton boy who rifles the trillium’s marshy bed, And wins unweeting an orchid rare, sacred, dove-shapen instead,— I, presumptuous, kneel at your shrine, abasing my penitent head!” “Yet what is Beauty unknown of Love? Naught but a sea-lamp unfed, Uninformed by the golden oil and flame, a dark in the dark overhead, No beacon to save the mariner’s bones from seeking the bones of the dead,— And I was not always so beautiful, dear; the flush and the light to my face 62