Were I an artist, I would paint thee thus:--
Tall, lithe and slender, like a Grecian youth
In flowing garb, whose lines enhance the form,
A face whose soul is innocence and truth,
And eyes of dreamy love, that blesses us
With gladness, like the sunlight after storm.
Were I a master of sweet music, I
Would turn the rhythm of thy motion, and
Thy voice and laughter into melody,
A symphony, fit for a royal band,
With joy of glitt’ring waves and zephyr’s sigh
With love’s entrancement and pure ecstasy.
But I, alas, have nothing but a rhyme,
In which to clothe the pleasure of an hour,--
An hour amid the fields and on the stream;
I picked for thee the rarest, sweetest flower,
A wild rose, mingling odor with the thyme,
Since that seems truest of a poet’s dream.