Classic Poem

A SKETCH

Pale is his cheek with deep and passionate thought,
Save when a feverish hectic crosses it,
Flooding its lines with crimson. From beneath
The long dark fringes of its drooping lid
Flash forth the fitful glances of his eye,
Like star-beams from the bosom of the night.
Above his high and ample forehead, float
The gloomy folds of his wild-waving hair,
Even as the clouds that crown a lofty hill
With sterner grandeur. On that quivering lid
The swelling brow weighs heavily, as though
Bursting with thoughts for utterance too intense!
His lip is curled with something too of pride,
Which ill beseems the meekness and repose
That should, at such an hour, within his heart,
Spite of this world's vexations, be enshrined.
'Tis not disdain; for only those he loves
Are 'round him now, with mild low-whispered words
Tendering heart-offered kindnesses, — and watching,
With fond inquietude, the couch whereon
His slender form reclines. What can it be? —
Perchance some rooted memory of the past; —
Some dream of injured pride that fain would wreak
Its force on dumb expression; — some fierce wrong
Which his young soul hath suffered unappeased.
But thoughts like these must be dispelled before
That soul can plume its wings to part in peace.

And now his gaze is lifted to the face
Of one who bends above him with an air.
Of sweet solicitude, and props his head,
Even with her own white arm, until at length
The sliding pillow is replaced; but, ere
His cheek may press on its uneven down,
Her delicate hand hath smoothed it. What a theme
For those who love to weave the pictured spell,
And fix the shadows that would else depart
From all but memory, on the tablets fair
Of the divine Euterpe!
Her blue eyes,
With tenderness, grow darker as they dwell
Upon the wreck before her; — and a tear,
Collected 'neath their fringes, large and bright,
Falls on the snow of her high-heaving breast.

Too well divineth he the voiceless grief
Which breathes in each unbidden sigh, and beams
From forth her humid eyes! Too well he knows
That love and keen anxiety for him
Have paled the ruby of her lip, and chased
The rose's dye from her so beautiful cheek.
His quivering lips unclose, as if to pour
The fond acknowledgments of grateful love
On that sweet mourner's ear; but his parched tongue
Denies its office. Gathering then each ray,
Each vivid ray of feeling from his heart,
Into a single focus — in his eye
His inmost soul is glassed, and love — deep love,
And grateful admiration, beam confessed
In one wild passionate glance!
The gentle girl
Basks her awhile in that full blaze — then stoops,
And hiding her pale visage in his bosom,
Murmurs sounds inarticulate, but sweet
As the low wail of summer's evening breath
Amid the wind-harp's strings. Then bursts the tide
Of woe that may no longer be repressed,
Stirred from its source by chill hope-withering fears,
And from her charged lids big drops descend
In quick succession. With more tremulous hand
Clasps she the sufferer's neck.
Upon his brow.
The damps of death are setting, — and his eyes
Grow fixed and meaningless. She marks the change
With desperate earnestness; and staying even
Her breath, that nothing may disturb the hush,
Lays her wan cheek still closer to his heart,
And listens, as its varying pulses move, —
Haply to catch a sound betokening life.
It beats — again — another — and another, —
And, now, hath ceased for ever! What a shriek —
A shrill and soul-appalling shriek peals forth,
Now the full truth hath rushed upon her brain!
Who may describe the rigidness of frame, —
The stony look of anguish and despair,
With which she bends o'er that unmoving clay?
Not I, — my pencil hath no further power: —
So here I 'll drop the Grecian painter's veil!