Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/194

---

Stole through the fair apartment; but Adel
Listed not the soft echo 'mid its flowers.
Her tlioughts were with her eyes, on the gay sky—
Her dreams were with the sunset—purple, and gold,
And crimson palaces she built in air,
With her wild fancies for the artisans.
And when she thought what spirit she would choose
To dwell with her beneath their gorgeous roofs,
She sighed, and her hp quivered mournfully.
But still she mused on beautiful, bright things—
With not a throb of her impassioned heart—
With not a tremble of her delicate hand—
Nor quiver of the lashes sweetly raised—
Nor startling of the color in her cheek,
To tell her that he stood almost beside her—
That the dark eyes of Clarence Vane were fixed
Upon the eloquence of her fair face!

Stilly he stood, and read her musing mood.
He saw that all was beautiful and pure—
That her young heart had turned away from him
Because he was unworthy—that her soul
Was blessed with holy peace—the blessed peace
That was denied unto his fevered brain.
Wild waves of bitterness swept o'er his soul;
Her quiet mood was maditess to his own—
Her placid face was torture, when his own
Had grown so furrowed in his agony!
One burning will, to crush her by the weight
Of scorn and pride, held his wild passions down—
Coldly and mockingly his dark eye smiled,
And his lip curled maliciously—

"Adel!"
The fair girl started from her rosy dreams,
And the faint flusli upon her cheek went down
At the first sound of that cold, mocking voice.
Love! O love! how fearful is thy power!