'TWAS in the old church yard I told you all, Beneath the Norway pine; There, by your mother's grave, I thought to call That poor lost mother mine. I saw you bend above an orphan child To kiss its winsome face; This woman, quoth I, is all undefiled, A miracle of grace. The world could never guess your riddle quite, Nor shake your soft repose; The same meek orbs that shone upon the night, Were stars when morning rose. O hypocrite! your cool, Antarctic sighs Make memory an eclipse; I feel the serpent from those poisoned eyes Browsing upon my lips. You @3changed.@1 You stumbled from the better path; You robed your vows on biers; And now my lexicon of love and wrath Is syllabled with tears. You changed! Your eyes are purple-lidded beads, Your hair a coil of flax, And the cold splendor of your shape recedes Into a mold of wax! O wormwood! that a thing of wax and wire Could make me love it so; I, with a Hecla-heart and nerve of fire, Gasping amid that snow. And now, repenting, you would be my wife, Would pawn your troth to @3me@1— Poor Doll! beyond the icebergs of your life There throbs no open sea! I sought it once, and lo! my former self Is shipwrecked in the quest. See the impassioned Franklin, with his pelf, Dead on your gelid breast. You scream—'tis but a delicate doll's cry— A trick, as all perceive it; They say you're stuffed with sawdust—though a lie, A skeptic might believe it! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FALL OF RICHMOND [APRIL, 1865] by HERMAN MELVILLE THE LOTOS-EATERS by ALFRED TENNYSON THE TREE ACROSS THE ROAD by ELIZABETH KELTY BEITEL A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 29 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT AN EPISTLE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |