Classic Poem

O sudden heaven! superb surprise!
O day to dream again!
O Spanish eyebrows, Spanish eyes,
Voice and allures of Spain!

No answering glance her glances seek,
Her smile no suitor knows;
That lucid pallor of her cheek
Is lovelier than the rose;—

But when she wakens, when she stirs,
And life and love begin,
How blaze those amorous eyes of hers,
And what a god within!

I watched her heart's arising strife,
Half eager, half afraid;
I paused; I would not wake to life
The tinted marble maid.

But starlike, through my dreams shall go,
Pale, with a fiery train,
The Spanish glory, Spanish glow,
The passion which is Spain.