Say they that all beauty lies
In the paler maiden's hue?
Say they that all softness flies,
Save from the eyes of April blue?
Arise then, like a night in June,
Beautiful Quadroon!
Come,--all dark and bright, as skies
With the tender starlight hung!
Loose the love from out thine eyes!
Loose the angel from thy tongue!
Let them hear heaven's own sweet tune,
Beautiful Quadroon!
Tell them--Beauty (born above)
From no shade nor hue doth fly:
All she asks is mind, is love:
And both upon _thine_ aspect lie,--
Like the light upon the moon,
Beautiful Quadroon.
THE PAST.
This common field, this little brook--
What is there hidden in these two,
That I so often on them look,
Oftener than on the heavens blue?
No beauty lies upon the field;
Small music doth the river yield;
And yet I look and look again,
With something of a pleasant pain.
'Tis thirty--_can't_ be thirty years,
Since last I stood upon this plank.
Which o'er the brook its figure rears,
And watch'd the pebbles as they sank?
How white the stream! I still remember
Its margin glassed by hoar December,
And how the sun fell on the snow:
Ah! can it be so long ago?
It cometh back;--so blithe, so bright,
It hurries to my eager ken.
As though but one short winter's night
Had darkened o'er the world since then.
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