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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Bridal Eve

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887)

Bridal Eve

HALF robed, with gold hair drooped o’er shoulders white,

She sits as one entranced, with eyes that gaze

Upon the mirrored beauties of her face;

And through the distances of dark and light

She hears faint music of the coming night;

She hears the murmurs of receding days;

Her future life is veiled in such a haze

As hides, on sultry morns, the sun from sight.

Upon the brink of imminent change she stands,

Glad, yet afraid to look beyond the verge;

She starts, as at the touch of unseen hands;

Love’s music grows half anthem and half dirge.

Strange sounds and shadows round her spirit fall,

Yet to herself she stranger seems than all.