Читать книгу Ballads of Beauty - Various - Страница 8

Half-past three in the morning!

And no one in the street

But me, on the sheltering doorstep

Resting my weary feet,

Watching the rain-drops patter

And dance where the puddles run,

As bright in the flaring gas-light

As dew-drops in the sun.

There's a light upon the pavement,

It shines like a magic glass,

And there are faces in it

That look at me and pass.

Faces – ah! well remembered

In the happy Long Ago,

When my garb was white as lilies,

And my thoughts as pure as snow.

Faces! ah, yes! I see them —

One, two, and three – and four —

That come in the gust of tempests,

And go on the winds that bore.

Changeful and evanescent,

They shine mid storm and rain,

Till the terror of their beauty

Lies deep upon my brain.

One of them frowns; I know him,

With his thin, long, snow-white hair, —

Cursing his wretched daughter

That drove him to despair.

And the other, with wakening pity

In her large, tear-streaming eyes,

Seems as she yearned towards me,

And whispered "Paradise."

They pass, – they melt in the ripples,

And I shut mine eyes, that burn,

To escape another vision

That follows where'er I turn —

The face of a false deceiver

That lives and lies; ah, me!

Though I see it in the pavement,

Mocking my misery!

They are gone, all three! – quite vanished!

Let nothing call them back!

For I've had enough of phantoms,

And my heart is on the rack.

God help me in my sorrow!

But there, – in the wet, cold stone,

Smiling in heavenly beauty,

I see my lost, mine own!

There, on the glimmering pavement,

With eyes as blue as morn,

Floats by the fair-haired darling

Too soon from my bosom torn.

She clasps her tiny fingers,

She calls me sweet and mild,

And says that my God forgives me

For the sake of my little child.

I will go to her grave to-morrow,

And pray that I may die;

And I hope that my God will take me

Ere the days of my youth go by.

For I am old in anguish,

And long to be at rest,

With my little babe beside me,

And the daisies on my breast.