Lizzie Magie

“ Thrilling with bliss in each other’s embrace.
Louder and livelier, merrier, sprightlier,
Warble your benison, beautiful birds,
While Nature smilingly, heartily, cordially
Blesses with silence more welcome than words.
Screened by the wide-spreading, friendly old maple tree,
Bathed in the glorious sunshine they stand. ”

“ For only death can steal the bliss
I feel because I love you.
Self.
All, all are selfish.
There is not one who does not live himself to please.
Life holds for each no other aim or object
Than to gratify and satisfy his own ambitions and desires. ”

“ Tapering limbs of witching plumpness, cunning, captivating feet—
Form suggesting worlds of pleasure, dreams of bliss than aught more sweet.
Ah! a face of wondrous beauty! Deep, dark eyes of midnight blue,
Silken lashes lightly resting on soft cheeks of healthy hue.
Tinted ears, like dainty sea-shells, finely chiseled nose and chin;
Even teeth of gleaming whiteness in a small mouth half shut in;
Full, ripe lips—a fount of sweetness—ever pleading for a kiss.
Who could see without admiring an impassioned girl like this?
25
The Purity of Passion. ”

“ Azure eyes and rosebud lips.
She is never dressed with primness,
Never moulded to her costumes,
Never pinched with useless girdles,
Nor annoyed with bones and buttons,
But is ever free and easy,
Ever restful and contented,
Ever graceful and bewitching,
In her filmy, fleecy garments,
In her robes of web-like texture,
Not unlike the angels’ raiment
In that heaven by fancy builded,
In that mythical abode;
Delicate and gauzy tissues,
Clinging to her shapely figure,
Clinging to her fairy form.
She is unendowed with wisdom,
She is not a brilliant scholar ”

“ If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers’ ears,
They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs;
For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own,
They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known. ”

“ And her whole being thrilled with an infinite bliss.
But the whispered “My darling,” she longed for in vain,
For his lips, when not kissing, would silent remain.
O why wouldn’t he whisper, “My darling?”
He loved her. His arms held her quivering form close to him;
She felt his hot breath on her soft, blushing cheek.
She knew that he loved her. With passionate tenderness then
He clasped her still closer. Her own will grew weak.
Would the sweet, longed-for words from his lips never come?
Alas! never, poor girl! For her lover was dumb.
O what exquisite joy was denied her!
27
Relativity. ”

“ My Roberta, is by me!
16
Genius Imprisoned.
In a dark and dingy place,
Surrounded by the sombre, dull-hued things
Of daily business life,
A youth, a pale and wan, though handsome youth,
Sits toiling day by day. ”

“ Still lingers on his faintly-murmuring lips.
Unconsciously he gazes,
But sees not, hears not,
Till the cruel clock strikes harshly
The death-knell of that poem.
Back! brought rudely back again!
The music stopped,
The poem curtly ended,
That youthful face,
So lately lit with ecstasy of joy,
18Wears now a look of keen and sharp-felt pain.
“Tick, tock,” work, work, “tick, tock,” work, work!
Alas! thy fair, sweet dreams
Will not bring bread and shelter
To thy aged, widowed mother!
Thy life is not thine own.
To work, to work! ”

“ There beams a world of poetry and song.
Spellbound, entranced, inspired he stands.
Then from his smiling, parted lips
His soul breathes forth a poem.
The words come ready-formed,
In pretty, well-turned phrases ”