C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Nora Creina
By Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
L
But no one knows for whom it beameth;
Right and left its arrows fly,
But what they aim at no one dreameth.
Sweeter ’tis to gaze upon
My Nora’s lid that seldom rises;
Few its looks, but every one
Like unexpected light surprises!
O my Nora Creina, dear,
My gentle, bashful Nora Creina,
Beauty lies
In many eyes,
But Love in yours, my Nora Creina.
But all so close the nymph hath laced it,
Not a charm of beauty’s mold
Presumes to stay where nature placed it.
Oh! my Nora’s gown for me,
That floats as wild as mountain breezes,
Leaving every beauty free
To sink or swell as Heaven pleases.
Yes, my Nora Creina, dear,
My simple, graceful Nora Creina,
Nature’s dress
Is loveliness—
The dress you wear, my Nora Creina.
But when its points are gleaming round us,
Who can tell if they’re designed
To dazzle merely, or to wound us?
Pillowed on my Nora’s heart,
In safer slumber Love reposes—
Bed of peace! whose roughest part
Is but the crumpling of the roses.
O my Nora Creina dear,
My mild, my artless Nora Creina!
Wit, though bright,
Hath no such light
As warms your eyes, my Nora Creina.