Volume Ii Part 15 (2/2)
George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]
”FLOWERS I WOULD BRING”
Flowers I would bring if flowers could make thee fairer, And music, if the Muse were dear to thee; (For loving these would make thee love the bearer) But sweetest songs forget their melody, And loveliest flowers would but conceal the wearer:-- A rose I marked, and might have plucked; but she Blushed as she bent, imploring me to spare her, Nor spoil her beauty by such rivalry.
Alas! and with what gifts shall I pursue thee, What offerings bring, what treasures lay before thee; When earth with all her floral train doth woo thee, And all old poets and old songs adore thee; And love to thee is naught; from pa.s.sionate mood Secured by joy's complacent plenitude!
Aubrey Thomas de Vere [1814-1902]
”IT IS NOT BEAUTY I DEMAND”
It is not Beauty I demand, A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:
Tell me not of your starry eyes, Your lips that seem on roses fed, Your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, where Cupid tumbling lies Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed:--
A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours, A breath that softer music speaks Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,--
These are but gauds: nay, what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream, Whose brink when your adventurer sips Full oft he perisheth on them.
And what are cheeks but ensigns oft That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft, Do Greece or Ilium any good?
Eyes can with baleful ardor burn; Poison can breathe, that erst perfumed; There's many a white hand holds an urn With lovers' hearts to dust consumed.
For crystal brows--there's naught within; They are but empty cells for pride; He who the Siren's hair would win Is mostly strangled in the tide.
Give me, instead of Beauty's bust, A tender heart, a loyal mind Which with temptation I could trust, Yet never linked with error find,--
One in whose gentle bosom I Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the care-burthened honey-fly That hides his murmurs in the rose,--
My earthly Comforter! whose love So indefeasible might be That, when my spirit won above, Hers could not stay, for sympathy.
George Darley [1795-1846]
SONG
She is not fair to outward view As many maidens be, Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me; Oh! then I saw her eye was bright, A well of love, a spring of light.
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