The Knickerbocker Gallery/To a Beautiful Girl
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Geo. D. Prentice.
To a Beautiful Girl.
Beautiful girl! I have wandered farToward the rising sun and the evening star;I have roamed 'mid the northern wastes of snow,And strayed where the soft magnolias blow,But I never gazed on a face so brightAs thine, sweet spirit of young delight.
Beautiful girl! thou art bright and fairAs an angel shape in the moonlight air;No shadow rests on thy brow of snow,Save that of thy tresses drooping low.Love's own dear light is wandering oftO'er thy gentle lip of carmine soft.Thy lovely cheek, where the rich, red glowOf the warm blood melts through the virgin snow,Is sweetly blending in one bright dye,The woven beauties of earth and sky.Truth, holy truth, in its freshness dwellsDeep, deep in thy dark eyes' shaded wells,And fancies wild from their clear depths gleam,Like shadows of stars from a trembling stream;And thy thoughts are a dream of Eden's bowers,And thy words are garlands of flowers, bright flowers.
Beautiful girl! I have seen thee move,A floating creature of joy and love,As light as a mist on the sunrise gale,Or the buoyant sway of a bridal vail, Till I almost looked to see thee riseLike a soaring thought to the free blue skies,Or melt away in the thin, blue air,Like a vision of fancy painted there,Thy low sweet voice, as it thrills around,Seems less a sound than a dream of sound;Softly and wildly its clear notes swell,Like the spirit-tones of a silver bell;And the lips whence the fairy music flowsIs to Fancy's eye like a speaking rose.
Beautiful, beautiful girl! thou artA vision of joy to the throbbing heart;A star sent down from the world of bliss,And all undimmed by the shades of this;A rainbow pictured by Love's own sonOn the clouds of being, beautiful one!
Beautiful girl! 't is a weary yearSince thy sweet voice fell on my ravished ear;'T is a long, long year of light and gloomSince I gazed on thy young cheeks' lovely bloom;Yet thy gentle tones of music stillThrough the holiest depths of memory thrillLike tones of a fount, or breeze, or bird,In the long-gone years of childhood heard.And oft in my dark and lonely moods,When a demon wing o'er my spirit broods,Thine image seems on my soul to breakLike the sweet young moon o'er a gloomy lake,Filling its depths, as the shadows flee,With beauty and love and melody.
Beautiful girl! thou art far away,And I know not where thy stepe now stray;But oh! 't is sweet, it is very sweet,In the fairy realms of dreams to greetThy cheek of rose, thy brow of pearl,And thy voice of music, beautiful girl!