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Home  »  A Library of American Literature  »  Song of Egla

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)

[From Zóphiël; or, The Bride of Seven. By Maria del Occidente. 1833.—Edited by Zadel Barnes Gustafson. 1879.]

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!