Frances S. Osgood

“ Give me back my guileless youth!
Pleasure, Glory, Fortune, Fame,
These I will not stoop to claim!
Take them! All of Beauty’s power,
All the triumph of this hour
Is not worth one blush you stole—
Give me back my bloom of soul! ”

“ While she gazed through her tears on his beauty, afar?
She sang, but her singing was only a sigh,
And nobody heard it, but Heaven, Love, and I,
A sigh, full of fragrance and beauty, it stole
Through the stillness up, up, to the star’s beaming soul.
She sang—“Thou art glowing with glory and might,
And I’m but a flower, frail, lowly, and light.
I ask not thy pity, I seek not thy smile;
I ask but to worship thy beauty awhile;
To sigh to thee, sing to thee, bloom for thine eye,
And when thou art weary, to bless thee and die!” ”

“ And his sword-wave is death, and his war-cry is doom!
Oh! brave not the knight of the dark crimson plume!
His armour is black, as the blackest midnight;
His steed like the ocean-foam, spotlessly white;
His crest a crouched tiger, who dreams of fierce joy—
Its motto “Beware! for I wake to destroy!”
And his sword-wave is death, and his war-cry is doom!
Oh! brave not the knight of the dark crimson plume! ”