Thy spell is gone; but oh, the maid whose heart Was riven by the little wing-ed god That dipped his arrow in the scarlet stream Of my own life, shall triumph over Art And Time,--my love, whose ardent pulsing blood Shall quicken other lives and reign supreme! MY GUIDING STAR Adrift alone on life's bleak ocean waste, Through starless nights and dreary sunless days; Wherever currents led o'er pathless maze, I plied the oars of aimless toil, and faced Defeat impatiently, nor ever traced One ray of hope along the murky haze Of life's horizon, till I caught the blaze Of one lone star, whose light was virgin-chaste. But now I sail through seas where fortune smiles, And not a cloud the brilliant sky doth mar; For, ever twinkling near that blazing light, A little orb my every care beguiles: My radiant wife is that lone guiding star, My laughing blue-eyed boy its satellite! AFTER READING SAMUEL MINTURN PECK'S RHYMES AND ROSES The drowsy drone of honey-laden bees, The poppied breath of gardens blooming fair, The scent of elder blossoms, sweet and rare, Come stealing in on balmy southern breeze; And dying lays, whose long lost melodies Still haunt old storied ruins everywhere, Are dimly floating through the fragrant air-- I dream beneath the blooming apple trees: A merry orchestra of nymphs and fays Has gathered in the pine-tree's elfin shade, With naiad shell and fairy reed and string, While Minturn Peck the magic baton sways. And when the band his "Rhymes and Roses," played, The dryads' voices made the woodlands ring! THERE'S NOTHING DARK ABOUT HER BUT HER HAIR There's nothing dark about her but her hair! Her liquid eyes, as blue as Grecian seas, Affect me, like a moonlit southern breeze, From off the fields of sweet magnolias rare; Her sympathetic soul is pure and fair And spotless as the petals of a rose: Her gown is like a drift of northern snows-- There's nothing dark about her but her hair! But oh, her hair, ye priests, ye gods, her hair! Those silken strands of raveled midnight wove Into a Cupid's mesh, a net of love! Ah, I confess that I'm entangled there! But Susan's life as spotless as a dove,-- There's nothing dark about her but her hair. BLIND TOM Oh, happy, sad, mysterious, wondrous soul! Imprisoned in a living dungeon deep The fates have bound thee; but they can not keep For ay that spirit in their dark control Who hear'st the music of the spheres that roll Through silent time; those beauteous orbs that sweep Through space and glitter in the boundless deep, Will yet thy blind, benighted life console.