Classic Poem

A boon from heaven my Mary seems,
To him whose heart is all her own —
She lives, the angel of his dreams,
The empress of his bosom's throne.

Oh, lovely is that face of hers,
Fair as the sunrise-tinted snows,
Sweet as the balmy breeze that stirs
The leaves around some folded rose.

Beneath my Mary's fairy tread,
The scattered violets love to spring;
And round her blooming path is shed
Incense from every zephyr's wing.

My Mary's smile is like that star,
The first that meets your wondering eye,
Before Night rolls her ebon car
Through the dim portals of the sky.

Like music in its softest flight
O'er moonlit waves, come Mary's words;
And all her thoughts have wings of light,
And rise as airily as birds.

In Poetry's exhaustless mine
She lays the richest treasures bare;
And she can make Earth's pebbles shine
Like diamonds in the common air.

I cannot sing her beauteous charms
Upon a lyre so frail as mine;
But could I win her to these arms,
That lyre would utter strains divine.

Oh! she is far beyond compare;
Seek through the world, you may not find
A heart so pure, a form so fair,
Illumined by so clear a mind!