Poems (Welby)/Viola

by Amelia Welby

VIOLA.

She hath passed like a bird from the minstrel throng,
She has gone to the land where the lovely belong!
Her place is hushed by her lover's side,
Yet his heart is full of his fair young bride;
The hopes of his spirit are crushed and bowed
As he thinks of his love in her long white shroud;
For the fragrant sighs of her perfumed breath
Were kissed from her lips by his rival—Death.

Cold is her bosom, her thin white arms
All mutely crossed o'er its icy charms,
As she lies, like a statue of Grecian art,
With a marble brow and a cold hushed heart.
Her locks were bright, but their gloss is hid,
Her eye is sunk 'neath its waxen lid:
And thus she lies in her narrow hall—
Our fair young minstrel—the loved of all.

Light as a bird's were her springing feet,
Her heart as joyous, her song as sweet;
Yet never again shall that heart be stirred
With its glad wild songs like a singing bird;
Never again shall the strains be sung,
That in sweetness dropped from her silver tongue;
The music is over, and Death's cold dart
Hath broken the spell of that free glad heart.

Often at eve when the breeze is still,
And the moon floats up by the distant hill,
As I wander alone 'mid the summer bowers,
And wreathe my locks with the sweet wild flowers,
I will think of the time when she lingered there
With her mild blue eyes, and her long fair hair;
I will treasure her name in my bosom-core;
But my heart is sad—I can sing no more.