POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
The world could never guess your riddle quite,
Nor shake your soft repose;
The same meek orbs that shone upon the night,
Were stars when morning rose.
Oh hypocrite! your cool, Antarctic sighs
Make memory an eclipse;
I feel the serpent from those poisoned eyes
Browsing upon my lips.
You changed. You stumbled from the better path;
You robed your vows on biers;
And now my lexicon of love and wrath
Is syllabled with tears.
You changed! Your eyes are purple-lidded beads,
Your hair a coil of flax,
And the cold splendor of your shape recedes
Into a mould of wax!
O, wormwood! that a thing of wax and wire
Could make me love it so;
I, with a Hecla-heart and nerve of fire,
Gasping amid that snow.
[ 82 ]
