Classic Poem

First printed in Blackwood's Magazine , October, 1846.

I

She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six, and over,
Of a purse well filled and a heart well tried —
Oh, each a worthy lover!
They " give her time;" for her soul must slip
Where the world has set the grooving;
She will lie to none with her fair red lip:
But love seeks truer loving.

II

She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb,
As her thoughts were beyond recalling,
With a glance for one , and a glance for some ,
From her eyelids rising and falling;
Speaks common words with a blushful air,
Hears bold words, unreproving;
But her silence says — what she never will swear —
And love seeks better loving.

III

Go, lady, lean to the night-guitar
And drop a smile to the bringer;
Then smile as sweetly, when he is far,
At the voice of an in-door singer.
Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes;
Glance lightly, on their removing;
And join new vows to old perjuries —
But dare not call it loving.

IV

Unless you can think, when the song is done,
No other is soft in the rhythm;
Unless you can feel, when left by One,
That all men else go with him;
Unless you can know, when unpraised by his breath,
That your beauty itself wants proving;
Unless you can swear " For life, for death!" —
Oh, fear to call it loving!

V

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day
On the absent face that fixed you;
Unless you can love, as the angels may,
With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;
Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,
Through behoving and unbehoving;
Unless you can die when the dream is past —
Oh, never call it loving!