With cottages, and their gay show
Of roses for a portico;
One which stood by a beech alone,—
Looked she not back upon that one?
Alas! she looked but in that eye
Where now was writ her destiny.
The heart love leaves looks back ever;
The heart where he is dwelling, never.
Yet as her last step left the strand,
Gheraldi then might feel her hand
Grow cold, and tremble in his own:
He watched her lip, its smile was flown;
Her cheek was pale, as if with fears;
Her blue eyes darkened with their tears:
He prest her rosebud mouth to his,
Blush, smile, returned to grace that kiss;
She had not power to weep, yet know
She was his own, come weal come woe.
Oh, who—reposed on some fond breast,
Love's own delicious place of rest—
Reading faith in the watching eyes,
Feeling the heart beat with its sighs,
Could know regrets, or doubts, or cares,
That we had bound our fate to theirs![1]
There was a shadow on their mirth;
A vacant place is by their hearth,
When at the purple evening's close
Around its firelight gathered those
With whom her youth's sweet course had run,
Wept, for the lost, the altered one!
She was so beautiful, so dear,
All that the heart holds precious here!
A skylark voice, whose lightest sound
So glad made evey heart-pulse bound!
'Twas a fair sight to see her glide
A constant shadow by the side
Of her old Father! At day-rise,
With light feet and with sunny eyes,
Busy within: and then, at times,
Singing old snatches of wild rhymes
Italian peasants treasure up,
O'erflowings of the poet's cup,
Suited to those whose earth and sky,
Temples and groves, are poetry.
And then at eve, her raven hair
Braided upon a brow as fair
As are the snowy chestnut flowers
When blooming in the first spring hours,
She sat beneath the old beech tree,
Her mandolin upon her knee.
- ↑ The Vow of the Peacock version has 'with theirs'
