Her timid blush, but did not dream its cause. Even then her young heart worshiped you, and shrunk, With a vague sense of fear and shame, away. She who, with others, was, and is, even now, Light, fearless, joyous, buoyant as a bird, That lets the air-swung spray beneath it bend, Nor cares, so it may carol, what shall chance, With _you_, forgets her song, foregoes her mirth, And hushes all her music in her heart. It is because your soul, that should know hers With an intuitive tenderness, is blind! But once again you met; then, years went by, And in a thronged, luxurious saloon, You drew her fluttering hand within your arm; A few blest moments next your heart it lay; And still the lady mutely veiled, from yours, Eyes where her glorious secret wildly shone; And you, a-weary of her seeming dullness, Grew colder day by day. But _once_ you paused Beside her seat, and murmured words of praise. Praise from _your_ lips! My God! the ecstasy Of that dear moment! Each bright word, embalmed In Memory’s tears of amber, gleams there yet— The costliest beads in her rich rosary. But you were blind! And after that a cloud, Colder and darker, hung between her heart And yours. There were malicious, lovely lips, That knew too well the poison of a hint, And it worked deep and sure. And years, again, Stole by, and now once more we meet. _We meet?_ ah, no; We ne’er have met! Hand may touch hand, perchance, And eye glance back to eye its idle smile; But our _souls_ meet not: for, from boyhood, you Have been a mad idolater of beauty. And _I_! ah, Heaven! had you returned my love, _I_ had been beautiful in your dear eyes; For love and joy and hope within the spirit Make luminous the face. But let that pass: I murmur not. In _my_ soul Pride is crowned And throned—a queen; and at her feet lies Love, Her _slave_—in chains—_that you shall ne’er unclasp_. Yet, oh! if aspirations, ever rising, With an intense idolatry of love, Toward all of grace and parity and truth That we may dream, can shape the soul to beauty, (As I believe,) then, in that better world, You will not ask if I were fair on earth. You have loved often—passionately, perchance— _Never_ with that wild, rapturous, poet-love Which _I_ might win—and _will_. Not here on earth: I would not have the ignoble, trivial cares Of common life come o’er our glorious union, To mar its spirit-beauty. In His home We shall meet calmly, gracefully, without Alloy of petty ills. . . . . . Meantime, I read you, as no other reads; I read your soul—its burning, baffled hopes; Its proud, pure aims, whose wings are melted off In the warm sunshine of the world’s applause; Its yearning for an _angel’s_ tenderness: I read it all, and grieve, and sometimes blush,