An Opal

Ednah Proctor Clarke Hayes

A ROSE of fire shut in a veil of snow,

An April gleam athwart a misted sky:

A jewel—a soul! gaze deep if thou wouldst know

The flame-wrought spell of its pale witchery;

And now each tremulous beauty lies revealed,

And now the drifted snow doth beauty shield.

So my shy love, aneath her kerchief white,

Holdeth the glamour of the East in fee;

Warm Puritan—who fears her own delight,

Who trembleth over that she yieldeth me.

And now her lips her heart’s rich flame have told;

And now they pale that they have been so bold.