Poems (Welby)/When Shines the Star

by Amelia Welby

"WHEN SHINES THE STAR."

When shines the star by thee loved best,
 Upon those soft delicious eves,
Lighting the ring-dove to her nest
 Where tremblings stir the darkling leaves;
When flings the wave its crest of foam
 Above the shadowy-mantled seas,
A softness o'er my heart doth come,
 Linking thy memory with these;
For if, amid those orbs, that roll,
 Thou hast at times a thought of me,
For every one, that stirs thy soul,
 A thousand stir my own of thee.

Even now thy dear remembered eyes,
 Filled up with floods of radiant light,
Seem bending from the twilight skies,
 Outshining all the stars of night;
And thy young face, divinely fair,
 Like a bright cloud seems melting through,
While low sweet whispers fill the air,
 Making my own lips whisper too;
For never does the soft south wind
 Steal o'er the hushed and lonely sea,
But it awakens in my mind
 A thousand memories of thee.

O! could I,—while these hours of dreams
 Are gathering o'er the silent hills,
While every breeze a minstrel seems,
 And every leaf a harp, that thrills—
Steal all unseen to some hushed place,
 And kneeling 'neath those burning orbs,
For ever gaze on thy sweet face
 Till seeing every sense absorbs,
And, singling out each blessed even
 The star, that earliest lights the sea,
Forget another shines in heaven
 While shines the one beloved by thee!

Lost one! companion of the blest!
 Thou who in purer air dost dwell,
Ere froze the life-drops in thy breast,
 Or fled thy soul its mystic cell,
We passed on earth such hours of bliss
 As none but kindred hearts can know,
And, happy in a world like this,
 But dreamed of that, to which we go,
Till thou wert called in thy young years
 To wander o'er that shoreless sea,
Where, like a mist, Time disappears,
 Melting into Eternity.

I 'm thinking of some sunny hours,
 That shone out goldenly in June,
When birds were singing 'mong the flowers
 With wild sweet voices all in tune;
When o'er thy locks of paly gold
 Flowed thy transparent veil away,
Till 'neath each snow-white trembling fold
 The Eden of thy bosom lay;
And sheltered 'neath its dark-fringed lid,
 Till raised from thence in girlish glee,
How modestly thy glance lay hid
 From the fond glances bent on thee.

There are some hours, that pass so soon,
 Our spell-touched hearts scarce know they end;
And so it was with that sweet June,
 Ere thou wert lost, my gentle friend!
O! how I'll watch each flower that closes
 Through autumn's soft and breezy reign,
Till summer-blooms restore the roses,
 And merry June shall come again!
But, ah! while float its sunny hours
 O'er fragrant shore and trembling sea,
Missing thy face among the flowers,
 How my full heart will mourn for thee!