Poems (Douglas)/The Blighted Heart

by Sarah Parker Douglas

The Blighted Heart.

She never named him, never,
 And they deemed he was forgot,
Yet she loved him dear as ever,
 Although she named him not.
She thought on fond words spoken,
 On joys for ever gone,
On plighted vows now broken,
 On her loved but faithless one.

She met the gay each morrow,
 And tried to join their laugh,
She dared not tell her sorrow,
 Lest heartless ones should scoff;
Her jetty eye was tearless,
 Yet its dark and steadfast ray
Spoke anguish deep and cheerless,
 Too keen to weep away.

The lily seemed not whiter
 Than her cheek, so sadly fair,
And her pale, pale brow gleamed brighter
 'Neath her rich, dark, flowing hair.
What though she did endeavour
 To seem gayest round the hearth?
Her smile! ah, never, never
 Could it be the smile of mirth.

Ah! no, 'twas like the glaring
 Of torch-light, fitful shed
O'er sculptur'd features, wearing
 The calmness of the dead:
But soon her eye assum'd
 A clear, unearthly light,
Again her pale cheek bloom'd,
 But its glow was strangely bright.

'Twas the hand of death imparted
 That mockery of bloom,
Ere he led the blighted-hearted,
 Love's victim to the tomb.
Spring's early flowers were spreading
 Their bright leaves 'neath her feet,
But she turned aside from treading
 O'er buds so young and sweet.

She knew the young flowers springing
 So gaily round her path,
Kind hands should soon be flinging
 O'er her lonely bed of death.
She thought on death unsighing,
 Her wish was to depart;
Yet she breath'd one prayer, in dying,
 For the loved one of her heart.