Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Song of Egla

By Maria Gowen Brooks (Maria del Occidente) (1794?–1845)

DAY in melting purple dying,

Blossoms all around me sighing,

Fragrance from the lilies straying,

Zephyr with my ringlets playing,

Ye but waken my distress:

I am sick of loneliness.

Thou to whom I love to hearken,

Come ere night around me darken:

Though thy softness but deceive me,

Say thou’rt true, and I’ll believe thee.

Veil, if ill, thy soul’s intent:

Let me think it innocent!

Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure:

All I ask is friendship’s pleasure:

Let the shining ore lie darkling;

Bring no gem in lustre sparkling;

Gifts and gold are nought to me:

I would only look on thee;

Tell to thee the high-wrought feeling,

Ecstasy but in revealing;

Paint to thee the deep sensation,

Rapture in participation,

Yet but torture, if comprest

In a lone unfriended breast.

Absent still? Ah, come and bless me!

Let these eyes again caress thee.

Once, in caution, I could fly thee.

Now I nothing could deny thee.

In a look if death there be,

Come, and I will gaze on thee!