| |
| AMID the chapel’s chequered gloom | |
| She laughed with Dora and with Flora, | |
| And chattered in the lecture-room,— | |
| That saucy little sophomora! | |
| Yet while, as in her other schools, | 5 |
| She was a privileged transgressor, | |
| She never broke the simple rules | |
| Of one particular professor. | |
| |
| But when he spoke of varied lore, | |
| Paroxytones and modes potential, | 10 |
| She listened with a face that wore | |
| A look half fond, half reverential. | |
| To her that earnest voice was sweet, | |
| And though her love had no confessor, | |
| Her girlish heart lay at the feet | 15 |
| Of that particular professor. | |
| |
| And he had learned, among his books | |
| That held the lore of ages olden, | |
| To watch those ever changing looks, | |
| The wistful eyes, the tresses golden, | 20 |
| That stirred his pulse with passion’s pain | |
| And thrilled his soul with soft desire, | |
| And bade fond youth return again | |
| Crowned with his coronet of fire. | |
| |
| Her sunny smile, her winsome ways, | 25 |
| Were more to him than all his knowledge, | |
| And she preferred his words of praise | |
| To all the honors of the college. | |
| Yet “What am foolish I to him?” | |
| She whispered to her heart’s confessor. | 30 |
| “She thinks me old and gray and grim,” | |
| In silence pondered the professor. | |
| |
| Yet once when Christmas bells were rung | |
| Above ten thousand solemn churches, | |
| And swelling anthems grandly sung | 35 |
| Pealed through the dim cathedral arches,— | |
| Ere home returning, filled with hope, | |
| Softly she stole by gate and gable, | |
| And a sweet spray of heliotrope | |
| Left on his littered study-table. | 40 |
| |
| Nor came she more from day to day | |
| Like sunshine through the shadows rifting: | |
| Above her grave, far, far away, | |
| The ever silent snows were drifting; | |
| And those who mourned her winsome face | 45 |
| Found in its stead a swift successor | |
| And loved another in her place— | |
| All, save the silent old professor. | |
| |
| But, in the tender twilight gray, | |
| Shut from the sight of carping critic, | 50 |
| His lonely thoughts would often stray | |
| From Vedic verse and tongues Semitic, | |
| Bidding the ghost of vanished hope | |
| Mock with its past the sad possessor | |
| Of the dead spray of heliotrope | 55 |
| That once she gave the old professor. | |
| |
