Page:Verses–Blanche·Baughan-1898.pdf/46



WHAT strange device is this of Fate’s, that thou, Being such, in such a time, to such an earth Art born, O damsel of the unruffled brow? Sure, in a stately age long-past, thy birth Must have made glad some lordly palace-pile In some far dreamy city of the South, Whose languid grace yet lingers in thy smile And curves the corners of thy pouted mouth, Sunbeams less shy than ours have kiss’d that cheek Into its changeful almond-petal bloom, And play’d their mazy game of hide-and-seek ’Mid those crisp tresses; till a sudden doom Fasten’d them there, for ever to abide, To lave thy brow in floods of radiant light, Or soft adown thy shoulder’s dimpled side Dance out a dazzling brede of gold and white.