64
Literary Gazette, 12th October, 1822, Pages 648-649
ORIGINAL POETRY.
POETICAL SKETCHES.
Third Series — Sketch the Sixth.
THE BASQUE GIRL AND HENRI QUATRE. [1]
Love! summer flower, how soon thou art decayed!
Opening amid a paradise of sweets,
Dying with withered leaves and cankered stem!
The very memory of thy happiness
Departed with thy beauty; breath and bloom
Gone, and the trusting heart which thou hadst made
So green, so lovely, for thy dwelling-place,
Left but a desolation.
'Twas one of those sweet spots which seem just made
For lovers' meeting, or for minstrel haunt;
The Maiden's blush would look so beautiful
By those white roses, and the poet's dream
Would be so soothing, lulled by the low notes
The birds sing to the leaves, whose soft reply
Is murmured by the wind: the grass beneath
Is full of wild flowers, and the cypress boughs
Have twined o'er head, graceful and close as love.
The sun is shining cheerfully, though scarce
His rays may pierce through the dim shade, yet still
Some golden hues are glancing o'er the trees,
And the blue flood is gliding by, as bright
As Hope's first smile. All, lingering, stayed to gaze
Upon this Eden of the painter's art,
And looking on its loveliness, forgot
The crowded world around them!—But a spell
Stronger than the green landscape fixed the eye—
The spell of Woman's beauty!—By a beech
Whose long dark shadow fell upon the stream,
There stood a radiant girl!—her chesnut hair—
One bright gold tint was on it—loosely fell
In large rich curls upon a neck whose snow
And grace were like the swan's; she wore the garb
Of her own village, and her small white feet
And slender ancles, delicate as carved
From Indian ivory, were bare,—the turf
Seemed scarce to feel their pressure. There she stood!
- ↑ this poem appeared later in The Improvisatrice and Other Poems
