inges
That hide a happy light
Almost divine."
The jealous moonlight drifted
To the finger half-uplifted,
Where shone the opal ring--
Where the colors danced and shifted
On the pretty, changeful thing.

Just the old, old story
Of light and shade,
Love like the opal tender,
Like it may be to vary--
May be to fade.
Just the old tender story,
Just a glimpse of morning glory
In an earthly Paradise,
With shadowy reflections
In a pair of sweet brown eyes.

Brown eyes a man might well
Be proud to win!
Open to hold his image,
Shut under silken lashes,
Only to shut him in.
O glad eyes, look together,
For life's dark, stormy weather
Grows to a fairer thing
When young eyes look upon it
Through a slender wedding ring.

Richard Doddridge Blackmore [1825-1900]

LOVE

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the armed man,
The statue of the armed Knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air;
I sang an old and moving story--
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade--

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and