Poems (Chitwood)/She never Loved him

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

SHE NEVER LOVED HIM.

She never loved him: all her grief' dissembling—
 Wearing a gilded mask of scorn and pride,
With bright flushed cheek, and white lips softly trembling,
 She took the vows that bound her as his bride;
And when, at last, the marriage hour was over,
 Calmly the joyful greetings she received;
No eye so skilled her anguish to discover,
 Deceiving others, not herself deceived.

She never loved him: yet his heart had given
 Its deepest, passionate, fervent love to her,—
Ill-freighted barque upon the breakers driven,
 Affection's waves his love could never stir.
Her sweet, young face so gloriously beaming
 With beauty's sunlight, radiant and still,
To him was fairer than an angel's dreaming—
 One glance, one smile, made all his heartstrings thrill.

She never loved him: none could mark her pining;
 When mingling oft with pleasure's joyous throng,
Gems on her dark brown locks like star-beams shining,
 Her heart seemed one unceasing fount of song
But, oh! those songs, they had an under-toning,
 Inaudible to every listening ear;
'Twas like the sea-shell's ever-constant moaning,
 Crying for something dear, alas! too dear.

She never loved him: all unskilled in reading,
 Little he knew his young bride's secret heart;
Little he knew its throbbing and its bleeding,
 Nursing a love that never could depart.
She kept the tears that from her eyes upstarted,
 Guarded from his keen eagle glance too well.
Oh! had he known that she was broken-hearted,
 No words his bitter agony might tell.

Often, at night, when holy stars were beaming,
 Alone she sat within her costly room,
Feeding her heart with vain and fevered dreaming,
 Adjuring ghosts of Memory from their tomb;
In the green valley, by the moaning river,
 Beside her dark-eyed love alone she stands,
Hearing the love-words, sweetest, sweetest ever
 To throbbing hearts and closely claspèd hands.

From honeyed lips fall kisses like a blessing;
 How eloquent each throb of that warm heart!
All all a dream—the time, the sweet caressing;
 But 'tis a dream that never can depart.

Oh, haunted heart! oh, life bereft and lonely!
 Fair jewel cast on sorrow's blackest wave!
For thee there is no rest, no gladness, only,
 Beneath the grasses of the lonesome grave.
Oh bitter sin! when thus a heart is bartered
 For shining jewels and bright gleaming gold;
Bitter deception, when a life is martyred,
 And love and hope thus idly bought and sold!