Classic Poem

But one day—it was midwinter—came a stranger with a letter;
He was charged, he said, to give it only to the lady's hand;
No one ever knew its import, but she suddenly grew better,
And they said it was the climate of that sunny Tuscan land.

She forsook her silken cushions, and with every day grew stronger,
Till the ripple of her laughter was like music's sweetest spell;
And there was a nameless trouble in her eyes' blue depths no longer;
And the sunshine of her presence made a glory where it fell.

She grew famous for her beauty—proudest nobles sought her favor;
And she listened gently, kindly, to the passionate tales they told,
But assured them, very earnestly, it was a vain endeavor
To win her heart to loving—it was marvelously cold.

But, one morning, she was missing, and her maidens vainly sought her
In her boudoir, on the terrace, in the garden far and near;
And her father, through her chambers, wildly, vainly, called his daughter,
With a face of ashy paleness, and a heart distraught with fear.

Then they sought her in the palaces, and all familiar places;
But the terror-stricken messengers, with wondering eyes astare,
Came hurrying back with flying feet and ashen-colored faces,
And in voices all a-tremble said, “My lady is not there.”

And, alas! the same wild questions won from all the same replying,
Till the father, bowed and sickened, sat with heart and hope a-wrack—
Sat all silent in his chamber, when the third day's sunlight, dying,
Crowned with stars the nightly shadows, and the lady came not back.

Very slowly, very sadly, wore the time away thereafter—
Searching ever for the lost one, never finding track nor trace.
Oh! the weary, weary longing for the ripple of her laughter,
For the music of her footstep, for the sunshine of her face!