George DarleyJoseph Blanco White
¶[1775-1841]
To NIGHT
¶MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew
¶Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,This glorious canopy of light and blue?Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,Hesperus with the host of heaven came,And lo! Creation widened in man's view.
¶Who could have thought such darkness lay concealedWithin thy beams, O sun! or who could find,Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ?If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?
George Darley
¶[1795-1846]
The Loveliness of Love
¶IT is not Beauty I demand,A crystal brow, the moon's despair,Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:
¶Tell me not of your starry eyes,Your lips that seem on roses fed,Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling liesNor sleeps for kissing of his bed:—
¶A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeksLike Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,A breath that softer music speaksThan summer winds a-wooing flowers,
George Darley
¶These are but gauds; nay, what are lips:Coral beneath the ocean-stream,Whose brink when your adventurer slipsFull oft he perisheth on them.
¶And what are cheeks but ensigns oftThat wave hot youth to fields of blood?Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,Do Greece or Ilium any good?
¶Eyes can with baleful ardour burn;Poison can breathe, than erst perfumed;There's many a white hand holds an urnWith lovers' hearts to dust consumed.
¶For crystal brows there's nought within;They are but empty cells for pride;He who the Syren's hair would winIs mostly strangled in the tide.
¶Give me, instead of Beauty's bust,A tender heart, a loyal mindWhich with temptation I would trust,Yet never link'd with error find,—
¶One in whose gende bosom ICould pour my secret heart of woes,Like the case-burthen'd honey-flyThat hides his murmurs in the rose—
¶My earthly Comforter! whose loveSo indefeasible might beThat, when my spirit wonn'd aboveHers could not stay, for sympathy.