Ay, let thy proud lip wear for me
The scornful curve it graces so;
The challenge may perchance call forth
My slumbering pride—I do not know.
Yet hardly still can I despise
The falsehood that hath been so sweet;
Hardly, when thinking on our past,
My burning words of scorn repeat.
Yet do I scorn thee; in my soul
My nobler nature spurns thy art;
And though my senses are enthralled,
A higher shrine must have my heart.
Go, fair enchantress; not thy brow,
Or lip, or cheek, or witching grace,
Or seeming worth, can ever win
In this changed heart a lasting place.
SNOWDROPS.
O take away your snowdrops pale, I can not bear the sight—
They were woven in our Ada's hair upon her bridal night;
And fairer looked the snowy buds than India's rarest pearls,
And fairer than them both the brow that beamed beneath her curls.
That lily brow, those tresses dark, O ne'er so fair a bride
Hath trembled at the altar-place her chosen one beside;
And never heart more pure and fond, a wedding gift was brought
Than Ada's in its sinlessness, its sweet and earnest thought.
The snowy robe, and lily brow, and bridal garland pale,