Poems (Chilton, 1885)/Pleasure and Duty

by Robert S. Chilton

Layout 2

PLEASURE AND DUTY.

 

We met, and loved, and parted—the old story:
 A bright-eyed maiden she, and I a youth
Who worshipped at her shrine, and thought the glory
 That dwelt about her was the light of truth.

O, she was fair as aught of poet's dreaming,
 And her large eyes were lustrous as the light
That streams from eve's first star, whose gentle beaming
 Pours a mild radiance round the brow of night.

Her speech was soft and musical as 'singing,
 And even now, after long, weary years,
I hear its silvery tones—like sweet bells ringing
 In the far chapel of my wasted years.

But she was false as fair—the maid I cherished—
 And in my hour of sorest need she fled,
And left me in a maze where I had perished,
 But for an angel who my footsteps led:

An angel woman, in whose large calm eyes
 Beamed the pure luster of a spotless soul,
Fixed as the star that burns in Northern skies—
 The God-fed pharos of the frosty pole.

Though cold at first, seen through the clearer air
 In which I breathe, a matchless beauty now
Lives in her perfect form, and flowing hair,
 And in the whiteness of her ample brow.

O, ye who worship Pleasure, know that beauty
 Flows from within, and makes the features fair;
See well, and in the plainer face of Duty
 Thou 'lt find such grace as angel-faces wear!