Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/119

My promised Love!—thou still hast kept
    The beauty of thy mantling prime,
While o'er my broken frame have crept
    The wrinkles and the scars of time.

Yes.—Well may I be wreck'd and torn
    Whom fifty adverse years have seen
Like blasted oak, the whirlwind's scorn,
    Still clinging where my joys had been.

My boughs and blossoms all were reft,—
    They might not know a second birth,—
Why were my wither'd roots thus left
    Unhappy cumberers of the earth?—

Yet still one image soothed my cares,
    Amid my nightly dream would shine,
Came hovering fondly o'er my prayers,
    And this, my buried lord, was thine.

That smile!—Ah, still unchanged it plays
    O'er thy pure cheek's vermilion hue,
As when it met my childhood's gaze,
    Or charm'd my youth's delighted view,—

As when thy skilful hand would bring
    From mountain's breast, or shelter'd down,
The earliest buds of tardy spring
    To scatter o'er my tresses brown.

But now the blossoms of the tomb
    Have whiten'd all those ringlets gay,
Whilst thou in bright, perennial bloom,
    Dost shine, superior to decay.