POETRY.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 324, 26 June 1875, Page 3

POETRY.

AN ANNIVERSARY. (From Chambers Journal.) In a chamber old and oaken, In a faint and faltering way, Half-a-dozen words were spoken, Just eleven years to-day. What was bound and what was broken, Let a woman’s conscience say. Half-a-dozen words excited, Whispered by a lover’s side ; Half delighted, half affrighted, Half in pleasure, half in pride : And a maiden’s troth is plighted, And a false love-knot is tied. Has a maiden not a feeling That can swell, and sing, and soar ? Came not o’er her spirit stealing Thoughts of things that were before ? In her heart did no revealing Tell her love was something more ? Barely half-a-dozen glances, Half in earnest, half in mirth— Five, or six, or seven dances — What is such a wooing worth ? Courtship in which no romance is, Cannot give a true love birth. Passion is a pain and power Slowly growing unto might, By long vigils, not the hour ; Real love is not at sight: ’Tis a weed ; ’tis not a flower That arises in a night. Lightly is the promise spoken, Lightly is the love-knot tied ; And the maid redeems the token, Living at her husband’s side; And her heart—it is not broken, But it is not in its pride. With the years shall come a feeling, Never, may be, felt before ; She shall find her heart concealing Wants it did not know of yore : Silently the truth revealing, I Real love is something more.