Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/213

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EDWARD COATE PINKNEY
195

Sleep not! thine image wakes for aye,
Within my watching breast:
Sleep not! from her soft sleep should fly,
Who robs all hearts of rest.
Nay, Lady, from thy slumbers break,
And make this darkness gay,
With looks, whose brightness well might make
Of darker nights a day.

A HEALTH

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
'T is less of earth than heaven.


Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burthened bee
Forth issue from the rose.

 
Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness, of young flowers;