Her eye was bright, and strangers never knew That all its brilliancy and light was drawn From out the funeral pyre of every hope That in an earlier, happier hour had glowed On passion’s hidden altar. Months rolled on, And when the softened color came again To cheek and lip, it was as palely bright As though from out a sleeping rose’s heart Its sweetest life had faded tranquilly. She mingled with the world—its gay saloons Gave back the echo of her joyous laugh; Her ruby lip, wreathed with its winning smile, Gently replied to gentler flatteries, And when her soul flowed forth upon the waves Of feeling in the charméd voice of song, You would have deemed that gushing melody The music of a purest, happiest heart, So bird-like was its very joyousness. And many envied that lone orphan girl Her light and happy spirit—oh! it was A bitter, burning mockery! when her life Was one continued struggle with itself To _seem_ what it could never _be_—to hide Its gnawing vulture ’neath a sunny smile— To crush the soul that panted to be free— And force her gasping heart to drink again The love that _fed upon itself_ and wore Her inner life away! They could not know her—could not understand How one could live, and smile, and _still be cursed_, Cursed with a “living judgment,” once to be Beloved—and then to be beloved no more, And _never to forget_. Her life was like Some pictured lily which the artist’s hand Gives its proportion—shades its virgin leaves With nature’s beauty—but the bee can find No banquet there—the breeze waft no perfume. The shadows of the tomb have lengthened o’er Her sky that blushes with the morn of life; Far on the inner shrine of Memory’s fane, Lie the cold ashes of her “wasted heart,” By burning sighs that sweep the darkened soul, By lava-drops wrung from a fevered brain, Or e’en the breath of God to be rekindled Never—no “_never more!_” —— And thus it is that _woman’s_ sacrifice Upon the altar of existence is (That pulse of life) her _warm_ and _loving heart_! Far other tongues beside the poet’s lyre There are to teach us that we often _do_ But “let our young affections run to waste And water but the desert”—that we make An idol to ourselves—we bow before Its worshiped altar-stone, and even while Our incense-wreaths of adoration rise It crumbles down before that breath, a mass Of shining dust; we garner in our hearts A stream of love undying, but to pour