Beneath the bright sun's dazzling ray,
She watched his vessel sail away
To distant, far-famed lands.
Her heart was gone,--upon her hand
Sparkled a diamond fair and grand,
Telling in silent jubilee
"His love is all the world to me."
Time goes by wings,--the years flew on,
The days had come,--the summers gone,
And still no loved one came
To feed the burning passion flame
Still glowing in her heart.
They told her "in another land
He captive held a heart and hand
And graced Dame Fashion's mart."
She listened to love's second tale
That came with Autumn's misty gale,
And hid her heart within the fold
Of satins rare, and lustrous gold,
Sadness so deep, must live untold
Shut in her marble palace high,
Reared almost up to touch the sky.
Haughty and cold her heart had grown,
For wealth and glory she lived alone,
Yet as oft she watched an out bound ship
Its prow in foamy waters dip,
The day came back when lip to lip
Her heart met his in a sad farewell.
Murmuring this sad and low refrain,
As cold and chill as winter rain--
"He's falser than human tongue can tell."
* * * * *
September's sun with yellow heat,
Fell burning where the waves had beat
With restless motion, against the shore,
And music like unto that of yore,
When a tiny speck in the clouds she saw,
Moving and nearing the pleasant land
Quietly, swiftly, as by a law.
Screening her brown eyes with her hand,
She saw it strike the pebbled sand,
And heard a glad shout cleave the air,
And saw a noble, manly form,
With locks of silvered raven hair,
And a heart with love and passion warm.
She held her breath in silent dread,
The crimson from her soft cheek fled,
Low at her feet he knelt;--
"No welcome for the leal and true?
Speak, darling, speak! it is my due,
Back through the years I've come to you
Faithful as when I went!"
"No answer still? my love, oh, why
No answer to my pleading cry?"
Thou'rt dead! Why have I lived for this?
To gain a life of shipwrecked bliss?
To distant lands to roam and then
Dead lips to welcome me again?
* * * * *
A funeral train,--all mourners great,
Pall-bearers clothed in robes of state,
The form they love more fair in death
Than when 'twas warmed by living breath,
A haughty man with silvered hair,
Among the strangers gathered there;--
A rose dropped by an unknown hand
With perfume from a foreign land,
Upon the casket lid,--
A ship at anchor in the bay,
That in the evening bore away
A form that landed yesterday.