Thought I was in love. Heavens! what a creature she was! Her form
was like a fairy’s; and her face, about which the flaxen ringlets
fell long, and soft, and silky, was at once so arch and sweet, it
witched the very soul out of me before I knew it. Her picture is
before me.--Her head like Juno’s, when she walked before the Olympic
Thunderer, and yet a woman’s; her brow, high, and white, and pure;
eyes of heaven’s own coloring, and bright, and ustrous, and large,
and full, in whose crystalline depths slept a soul such as--as--you
must guess at, reader, I can’t think of a comparison; a cheek, the
eloquent beauty of which melted away so gradually into the pure
transparency of her temples, that the eye lost it, and was wandering
away, up, and around them, before it became aware of its own vagaries;
and her mouth--Heavens and Earth! it was altogether and absolutely,
the sweetest, prettiest, pouting, come-kiss-me, little mouth, I ever
looked at; and her voice--her voice--how clear and musical--there was
nothing like her clear, happy laugh--it rung like an instrument--like
the silvery bell in the Faery Tale; and when she prettily bade me sit
at her feet, and look up into her clear bright eyes--pooh! I might as
well have attempted to knock Destiny on the head at once, and steer
the boat of life myself, as keep from doing her bidding; and her
form, robed as she was in her white cymar, with a single rose in her
hair--the neck--the full bust--the rounded arm--the graceful curvature
and wavy sweep of her folded dress, as it swelled from her glittering
zone and fell to her feet--dear me! dear me--I--but this will do for a
description.
Her name was Fan.
One beautiful twilight--I shan’t forget it soon--one twilight, as the
sun went, and right over his glorious resting place, the clouds of
evening, like an enormous sweep of woven chrysolite, hung pinned by a
single star to the blue wall of heaven--I sat and gazed at that star,
then into her eyes; now into her eyes, and then at that star again;
and--I grew silly.
Says I, “Fan!”
Says she, “Frank!”
“You are very pretty,” says Frank.
“You are very impudent,” says Fan.
She shook her head at me, and drew her mouth into the queerest pucker
imaginable.
“Fanny,” said I seriously.
She sobered.
Some how or other, I got hold of her hand--’twas a pretty hand! I
kissed it.
“Don’t be silly;” and she gave me a cuff that made me see stars.
“Fanny, I”--
She looked softly at me.
“Dearest Fanny, I”--
She pouted.
“I--I”--
She blushed.
“I--love you.”
She sprang into my arms.
Bending back her head, and shaking her long locks from her pretty brow,
our lips--
Hillo! reader, you are not getting sentimental, are you? Don’t now; for
I’ve no sympathy with you--no more sentiment than a horse.
But stop; here’s a bit, and written when things were tremendous. _Ecce
signum!_
O Fanny, sweet Fanny,
I cannot tell why,
But I live in the glance
Of thy witching blue eye--
In the light of the spirit
And loveliness there:
O! I cannot tell why
I so love you, my fair!
It is not--it is not
Its mild beaming--far,
Far excelling each lonely
And dim gleaming star;
It is not the beauty,
The sweetness of face,
The form of perfection,
The movement of grace!
It is not, thou lovest me--
For ere I had heard
Thy low sweet confession
As murmur of bird;
Ere thou told’st me, my beauty,
Thy dreams were all mine;
I cannot tell thee why--
But I knew I was thine.
A charm floats around,
And I feel while with thee,
Though a poor silly captive,
No wish to be free;
O! thus to be bound
In a thraldom like this--
Though a thraldom indeed,
’Tis the sweetest of bliss!
I am thine, dearest Fanny,
Yea, thine and forever--
No dark storm of sorrow
Our young hearts shall sever;
We’ll live, dream, and sigh, love,
Till time is no more;
And when death comes, we’ll fly, love,
To a sunnier shore!
I suppose I felt considerably relieved after this Ætnæan effusion.
’Twould have cooled the furnace where they put Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego. But hear the sequel! We pouted, quarreled, parted.