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Literary Gazette, 2nd April, 1831, Page 220
ORIGINAL POETRY.
LINES
Supposed to be the Prayer of the Supplicating Nymph in
Mr. Lawrence Macdonald’s Exhibition of Sculptures.*
She kneels as if in prayer, one graceful arm
Extended to implore: her face is fair,
But calm and somewhat sad: methinks the past
Has taught her life's all general lesson—grief;
But grief which has subsided on that brow
To a sweet gravity, that yet seems strange
In one so young: her lip is cold, and wears
No smile to suit its beauty or its youth.
What is its prayer?
The myrtle wreath that I have laid
Upon thy shrine is withered all;
The bloom which once its beauty made,
I would not, if I could, recall;
No! emblem of my heart and me,
I lay it, Goddess, on thy shrine;
And the sole prayer I offer thee,
Is—let it still be emblem mine.
There was a time when I have knelt
With beating heart and burning brow;
All I once felt is now unfelt—
The depths once stirred are silent now:
I only kneel that I may pray
A future like my present time—
A calm, if not a varied way—
A still, if not a summer clime.
There comes no colour to my cheek,
Whatever step be passing by;
No glance makes mine the green earth seek,
That answer of a conscious eye;
My pulse is still as waves that sleep
When the unbroken heaven is seen;
Ah! never comes a calm so deep
As where the tempest late hath been.
