Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/221

This page needs to be proofread.

THE MOURNING LOYER.

��THERE was a noble form, which oft I marked As the full blossom of bright boyhood's charms Ripened to manly beauty. Nature taught His eloquent lip and fervid eye to win Fair woman's trusting heart.

Yet not content

Because ambition's fever wrought within, He went to battle, and the crimson sod Told where his life-blood gushed.

The maid who kept

In her young heart the secret of his love, With all its hoarded store of sympathies And images of hope, think ye she gave, When a few years their fleeting course had run, Her heart again to man ?

Not so ! She twined Its riven tendrils round a surer prop, And reared its blighted blossoms toward that sky Which hath no cloud. She sought devotion's balm, And, with a gentle sadness, turned her soul From gaiety and song. Pleasure, for her,

�� �