The Story
of Saville
Over a face that is girlish fair, candid and noble-browed,
Yet ’ware of its own perfections high, and some thing haughty and proud,
Scarce warmer in tint than the cornel’s leaf or a runlet’s eddying foam
’Till your voice or touch calls the straying blood back to its natural home,
And then,—not the heart of a half-blown rose holds ever a hue so sweet
As the pink in the cheek of a woman where youth and happiness meet!”
“I am as a wanton boy who rifles the trillium’s marshy bed,
And wins unweeting an orchid rare, sacred, dove-shapen instead,—
I, presumptuous, kneel at your shrine, abasing my penitent head!”
“Yet what is Beauty unknown of Love? Naught but a sea-lamp unfed,
Uninformed by the golden oil and flame, a dark in the dark overhead,
No beacon to save the mariner’s bones from seeking the bones of the dead,—
And I was not always so beautiful, dear; the flush and the light to my face
