Virginia Free Press

They say thou art not fair to others’ eyes,
Thou who dost seem so beautiful in mine!
The stranger coldly passes thee, or asks
What name, what home, what parentage are thine?
But carelessly, as though it were by chance
Bestows on thee an unadmiring glance.
Art thou not beautiful? To me it seems
As though the blue veins in thy temples fair—
The crimson in thy full and innocent lips—
The light that falls upon thy shining hair—
The varying colour in thy rounded cheek—
Must all of Nature’s endless beauty speak!
The very pillow that thy head hath pressed,
Through the past night, a picture brings to me
Of rest so holy, calm, and exquisite,
That sweet tears rise at thought of it and thee;
And I repeat, beneath the morning’s light,
The mother’s lingering gaze, and long good night!
Yea, even thy shadow, as it slanting falls,
(When we two roam beneath the setting sun,)
Seems, as it glides along the path I tread,
A something bright and fair to gaze upon;
I press thy little eager hand the while,
And do not even turn to see thee smile!
Art thou not beautiful?—I hear thy voice;
Its music shouts of childhood’s sudden mirth
And echoes back the laughter, as thy feet
Come gaily bounding o’er the damp spring earth.
Yet no gaze follows thee but mine. I fear
Love hath bewitched my eyes—my only dear!
Beauty is that which dazzles; that which strikes;
That which doth paralyze the gazer’s tongue,
Till he hath found some words of rapturous praise
To bear his proud and swelling thoughts along.
Sunbeams are beautiful—and gilded halls—
Wide terraces—and showery waterfalls:
Yet there are things which through the gazing eye
Reach the full soul and thrill it into love;
Unworthy of those rapturous words of praise,
Yet prized, perchance, the brightest things above;
A nook that was our childhood’s resting place,
A smile upon some dear familiar face.
And therefore did the discontented heart
Create that other word, its thoughts to dress,
And what it could not say was beautiful,
Yet gained the dearer term of loveliness.
The loved and lovely—so art thou to me,
Child in whose face strange eyes no beauty see.