The Poetical Album Volume 2; And Register of Modern Fugitive Poetry (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829 Excerpt: ... in her mien, and in her face, And in her young step's fairy lightness, Nought could the 'raptured gazer trace But beauty's glow, and pleasure's brightness. I saw her twice--an altered charm--But still of magic richest, rarest, . Than girlhood's talisman less warm, Though yet of earthly sights the fairest: Close to her breast she held a child, The very image of its mother; Which ever to her smiling smiled, They seemed to live but in each other: --But matron cares, or lurking woe, Her thoughtless, sinless looks had banished, And from her cheek the roseate glow Of girlhood's balmy morn had vanished; Within her eyes, upon her brow, Lay something softer, fonder, deeper, As if in dreams some visioned woe Had broke the Elysium of the sleeper. I saw her thrice--Fate's dark decree In widow's garments had arrayed her Yet beautiful she seemed to be As even my reveries portrayed her: The glow, the glance had passed away, The sunshine, and the sparkling glitter; Still, though I noted pale decay, The retrospect was scarcely bitter; For, in their place a calmness dwelt, Serene, subduing, soothing, holyj In feeling which, the bosom felt That every louder mirth is folly--A pensiveness--which is not grief, A stillness--as of sunset streaming--A fairy glow on flower and leaf, Till earth looks like a landscape, dreaming. A last time--and unmoved she lay, Beyond life's dim, uncertain river, A glorious mould of fading clay, From whence the spark had fled for ever f I gazed--my heart was like to burst--And, as I thought of years departed, The years wherein I saw her first, When she, a girL was lightsome-hearted;--And, when I mused on later days, As moved she in her matron duty, A happy mother, in the blaze Of ripened hope, and sunny beauty, --I felt the chill--I turned aside--Bleak