As flowers, that seem the light to shun
At evening's dusk and morning's haze,
Expand beneath the noon-tide sun,
And bloom to beauty in his rays,
So maidens, in a lover's eyes,
A thousand times more lovely grow,
Yield added sweetness to his sighs,
And with unwonted graces glow.
As gems from light their brilliance gain,
And brightest shine when shone upon,
Nor half their orient rays retain,
When light wanes dim and day is gone:
So Beauty beams, for one dear one!
Acquires fresh splendour in his sight,
Her life--her light--her day--her sun--
Her harbinger of all that's bright![2]
[2] "There is nothing new under the sun;" Solomon was right. I
had written these lines from experiencing the truth of them, and
really imagined I had been the first to express, what so many
must have felt; but on looking over Rogers's delicious little
volume of Poems, some time after this was penned, I find he has,
with his usual felicity, noted the same effect. I give his Text
and Commentary; they occur in his beautiful poem, "Human Life,"
speaking of a girl in love, he says:
"--soon her looks the rapturous truth avow,
Lovely before, oh, say how lovely now!"
On which he afterwards remarks:
"Is it not true that the young not only appear to be, but really
are, most beautiful in the presence of those they love? It calls
forth all their beauty."
Such a coincidence might almost induce me to exclaim with the
plagiarising pedant of antiquity, "_Pereant qui ante nos nostra
dixerunt_!"