Stephanotis.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1812, 16 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Stephanotis.

" Nay, darling ; nay my bonny girl, Set free each blossom-prisoned curl, Lay those white clusters down ; Let silken snood with maiden grace Hold back the ringlets from thy face, But not that starry crown. " Or let some simpler blossom twine Upon thy forehead, daughter mine, Blush rose or lily white ; Or let a simple string of pearls Gleam girlishly among thy curls, Upon this festive night. " Rut take those waxen blooms away, Ah, darling 1 thoughts I cannot stay Spring in my wakened heart ; Pass on, my sweetest, out of sight, Take thou thy fill of young delight, While I sit here apart." I hear her flutter down the stair, I hear the chariot wheels that bear From me my peerless maid ; Now, wherefore should it wake to-night, That ghost of dead-and-gone delight I thought for ever laid ? The air is heavy with perfume, Out-breathed from that white mass of hloom My child laid gently down ; Ah me 1 an old-time sorrow stirs ! I see on curls as bught as hers A stephanotis crown. Across daik memory's time-worn track A vision of that face comes back That won my boyish heart ; My wife, the mother of my child, What waves of sorrow wide and wild Have set us twain apart. Yet flesh of flesh, and bone of bone, She was to me beloved alone Of all earth's womankiud ; She ruled me with supreme command ; I put my honor in her hand, Love made me wholly blind. I kept her from the world apart, I wore her in my inmost heart A pure and perfect pearl ; Ah me 1 I doted over-much, I never thought that shame could touch The mother of my girl ; Eve 'scaped not sin in Paradise, And shall her daughters be more wise ? The tale is common now ; Through flowery downward paths beguiled, The mother wandered from her child, The wife forgot her vow. Yet on that night of bitter woe She stayed to kiss her child, I know, For by the little bed I found a waxen-petalled flower, Torn, haply, in that parting hour, From her bright drooping head. Now if the green grass waves above Her grave, or if that guilty love Still solaces her life, I know not, I may never know, Time cannot bridge the floods that flow 'Twixt me and my lost wife. Peace, peace, my heart ; be calm, be strong, The child retrie7es the mother's wrong, Life holds new hopes for thee ; The white flowers perish in the flame — So may the past with all its shame Die evermore for me I — All the Year Round.